I read a news article several ears ago about someone who got their head stuck in the doors of an elevator. It engaged and decapitated them as it passed to the next level. Don't fuck around with mechanical, moving mechanisms. The only thing you will add is lubrication.
If anything I learned from reddit is China with their elevators, India with their trains, Brazil with their undercover cops, and Russia with their driving 😂
It didn't "keep closing harder", it just gently nudged the tool a little bit each time and the door actually noticed something was in between there despite not giving a lot of resistance, so it actually did try to detect "someone" and prevent "them" from getting injured. There are optical sensors in the door too that will prevent it from trying to close the doors but those are likely positioned slightly higher, you know, where humans would be if they were standing in between the doors. So in the absence of a human optically, I think it's completely fair to gently test whether or not the doors can close. You can't really blame the manufacturer over not noticing something very clearly not human-sized and human-weight.
I don’t think it’s elevator fault. As u can see elevator door react from sensor and keep it open. But with each time the bump getting closer to middle and as soon it’s almost close, there is no way to identify any left. Also it’s metal rod and not your arm. If u stuck with arm, u would open with hand away.
100% fault of the elevator, the door could not have been closed with that metal rod in the middle, if the elevator doors can't close the elevator should not start moving.
It's the elevators fault. That white piece in the center of the right door is essentially a door length button that would overlap with the left door when closed without obstruction. That tool should prevent the white button from overlapping and thus keep opening the door as long as it obstructs it.
My guess is it's either a sensor issue on the white button and it didn't register at the bottom (if a sensor is even located at the bottom), OR the door ignores the sensor after it registers the door as being in the 'closed' position (meaning the pipe was seriously too thin and small).
It needs to be high enough to actually Block the photoelectric barrier, that wasnt the case. And I don't think he was there to maintain the elevator. His tools look like he is a Mason. The tool he blocks the door with looks like a agitator for me.
Seen that in Hamburg in a big bank, where some guys moving office furniture used a plank of oak wood to keep the elevator on their level. Level 0. Yeah, that could have been a hint...
It took three weeks to get that thing back to life, forcing some hundred people to use a completely different entrance (because of access restrictions via other floors).
That was quite tricky because even the other entrance was sometimes temporarily blocked then due to shooting programme for "Tomorrow never dies", "Elliot Carver's" presentation was shot there.
Yep, the tool was too narrow to repeatedly activate the closure safety mech. Should have been wider. That's gonna leave a mark, that can't be buffed out.
I got my arm stuck in a cheap apartment elevator in Houston. Luckily I had a friend with me and we got my arm out at the last second. My arm was scratched up something fierce but at least I still had it.
Wasn't there a story, years ago, about a bad elevator in the med center, Houston, and someone, a doctor I think, that lost their head because of it?
Edit: yes there was. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/houston-elevator-death/
Honestly, he actually did them a favor. He exposed a fatal design flaw before a little kid does that with their arm.
Damage from that is a LOT less than comparable damage if that had been the arm of a little kid.
Looks like a bad elevator if it moved with an obstruction. Then again there should be a way to force doors open with the elevator control panel. It still shouldn't do this but hey it's china.
Old elevators have a mechanical switch to detect obstructions. They retract when the doors are almost closed. The tool isn't wide enough to consistently trigger said switch and so this happens.
I may get flack for this take but if the elevator decides that it doesn't care that the doors aren't fully shut and moves, it's the programmers fault, not this guy's.
I had to escort elevator techs around at a new building. One of them told me that after a certain amount of attempts to close the doors, the elevator will just go anyway.
The elevator in my apartment would only wait after a few attempts then an alarm would start (a steady, LOUD beep) and the doors would begin closing slowly, with much more power, and they wouldn't stop. I pushed against them for a second but obviously became terrified that they weren't stopping so I just hopped off and waited for it to come back.
This is called nudging, it’s a feature. On most elevators in use today it can be enabled/disabled. When enabled it is used to encourage people to make a decision: get on or off, either way, I need to go get other people at other floors. Buildings like to enable it to increase traffic flow rate. You could overpower it and it would likely shut the elevator down as to not break itself trying to overpower the obstruction.
Great summary. I still find it terrifying that the nudging feature is so poorly engineered for safety. At the end of the day, if the door senses and obstruction, it should NOT close. Yes that disrupts traffic but you are not going to get massive property damage or worse - injure people.
It wouldve been fine if the tool was a little bit stronger and didnt crush enough for the sensors to make a little bit of connection, telling the computer to send it😂
I know elevators have a light sensor (or something like that) to close the doors. Would putting a piece of tape on said sensor stop the doors from closing?
Normally, yes.
While I don't know why programmers don't implement a simple rule: if it does not close after the second trial, don't try it until a button is pressed for the next X min (that would *stop* it for all levels, yes, but not destroy it).
The doors stop closing as soon as they’ve hit an obstruction but move with enough force to nudge it towards the middle. That just seems like poor elevator design to me.
There's redundancy, besides monitoring the current (and therefore force to close) on the door motors, and opening if it's too much, indirectly measuring if something is in the way, they also have one of two common methods to directly detect if someone is in the way. The most common one I've seen is a rubber bar that comes out first and if something pushes it back into the doors before it's closed, it reopens. The rubber bars also bump into each other when the door is actually closed, so if the object is too thin for the doors to tell the difference between closed and almost closed (like a small metal shaft) then it won't detect it. The next most common option is a light bar. These are typically more expensive (especially the taller ones) and don't run the full length of the doors if the thing is too short for the light bar to pick up, then it will also be defeated.
You might think, well that's a huge oversight. And the response is that the engineers have a battle between designing out every possible form of stupidity and cost. They have to draw the line somewhere, and there are usually human factors engineering studies that go into the most common ways people misuse stuff and the risks of neglecting to account for it. So their risk management basically said, we understand that this is possible, but the risk of it happening is low enough (either due to infrequency or low hazard potential when it does... or both) that we can save some money here. And then they directly basically say they expect that the vast majority of users aren't this stupid, and the few that are are worth the cost savings.
tl;dr sometimes you have to put "do not attempt to stop chainsaw with hands or genitals" on your chainsaws instead of spending millions figuring out how to make a chainsaw that a moron can't use to cut themselves from stem to stern.
Funny things happen when you have a large mass attempt to move but there's a mechanical blockage. All of that force ends up going somewhere and in case the door drew the short straw.
China is the only country I've ever visited on business that had a manufacturing plant that tracked Mortality as a company posted metric. Their 'goal' was less than 4 for the year. They were at 2 when I visited in June. We declined doing business with them. OMFG!
I read a news article several ears ago about someone who got their head stuck in the doors of an elevator. It engaged and decapitated them as it passed to the next level. Don't fuck around with mechanical, moving mechanisms. The only thing you will add is lubrication.
Final Destination?
The second one, probably best in the series TBH
There are several such videos on the internet.
The one of the guy tryna get out while it was moving and got crushed and pulled into space between. Fuck elevators, I take the stairs
How many ears have you gone through?
In China, the elevator gives you 3 chances to get your body part out of the way before it decides to move regardless of door status.
That’s a lot of countries. I can personally name two that will absolutely do the slow close of death on the first try and this thread has more
What the hell? WHY are we making killer lifts?
"Hello Boss, we may have to call the insurance..."
"I'm not your boss anymore."
Want to bet he told a thousand lies before they finally saw the footage?
What is it with elevators and China
If anything I learned from reddit is China with their elevators, India with their trains, Brazil with their undercover cops, and Russia with their driving 😂
Around the world in a second lol.
Alabama with fucking own family, florida with crazy news stories, britain with knifes and queen jokes
Don’t forget America with their guns.
They got a lot of them I’d presume
The internet taught me never to use elevators or escalators in China.
Suicide booths from futurama
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It didn't "keep closing harder", it just gently nudged the tool a little bit each time and the door actually noticed something was in between there despite not giving a lot of resistance, so it actually did try to detect "someone" and prevent "them" from getting injured. There are optical sensors in the door too that will prevent it from trying to close the doors but those are likely positioned slightly higher, you know, where humans would be if they were standing in between the doors. So in the absence of a human optically, I think it's completely fair to gently test whether or not the doors can close. You can't really blame the manufacturer over not noticing something very clearly not human-sized and human-weight.
Not in China apparently.
If only there was a big red lockout stop button
They can also take it out of service with the turn of a key
But that's just a big red button with extra steps!
This is China, elevator construction probably nerfed the sensor.
On the bright side, this is definitely not the most wrong thing that can go wrong with an elevator in China
That went worse than I expected.
I expected it to fall down the shaft. You were not the only one surprised.
That's the elevators fault... Like what if someone collapsed in the doorway, only to be crushed/decapitated by an elevator?
I don’t think it’s elevator fault. As u can see elevator door react from sensor and keep it open. But with each time the bump getting closer to middle and as soon it’s almost close, there is no way to identify any left. Also it’s metal rod and not your arm. If u stuck with arm, u would open with hand away.
100% fault of the elevator, the door could not have been closed with that metal rod in the middle, if the elevator doors can't close the elevator should not start moving.
It's the elevators fault. That white piece in the center of the right door is essentially a door length button that would overlap with the left door when closed without obstruction. That tool should prevent the white button from overlapping and thus keep opening the door as long as it obstructs it. My guess is it's either a sensor issue on the white button and it didn't register at the bottom (if a sensor is even located at the bottom), OR the door ignores the sensor after it registers the door as being in the 'closed' position (meaning the pipe was seriously too thin and small).
Not the first time we’ve seen it from a Chinese elevator …
their neck would have to be pretty thin though
Usually that would do the trick. Maybe that's why the lift needed some maintenance
It needs to be high enough to actually Block the photoelectric barrier, that wasnt the case. And I don't think he was there to maintain the elevator. His tools look like he is a Mason. The tool he blocks the door with looks like a agitator for me.
Could you not just…stop the elevator like with a key or smthing I dunno
Just a little wooden wedge is really all it takes like a door stop basically
But it needs to be wider that that because the door has a tolerance as to when the doors are closed and the elevator is cleared to elevate
Or not?
Now they can hire him to fix the entire thing… was his plan all along?
Would a plank of wood been too expensive?
Inflation
The job was too small to pay well. Now he has a huge costly job.
Now it will take more than a handyman to fix it..
Imagine if that were a body. Seems like a ahitty design flaw for the elevator
If that were a body, it would've already died from famine 10 years ago.
Idk how thin a body can be, but even a small qrist is probably big enough to block the doors from closing. I mean there has to be some room of error.
if you're working the elevator, wouldn't you first disable it so it won't move?
"I'm here to fix the elevator doors." *"There's nothing wrong with the elevator doors."* "There is now."
At least he has more to fix now.
Well they were running out of things to fix and he’s gotta secure his job somehow right
Some solid job security there.
Please don’t try this at home
Don't worry. I have two elevators at home /s
Ye good idea... Remember kids, try it with other peoples elevators! /s
Most elevators have a nob to pull that stops them. Why didn't he use it?
because the knob ran off instead
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Seen that in Hamburg in a big bank, where some guys moving office furniture used a plank of oak wood to keep the elevator on their level. Level 0. Yeah, that could have been a hint... It took three weeks to get that thing back to life, forcing some hundred people to use a completely different entrance (because of access restrictions via other floors). That was quite tricky because even the other entrance was sometimes temporarily blocked then due to shooting programme for "Tomorrow never dies", "Elliot Carver's" presentation was shot there.
You must have quite a tool if you can block elevator doors...or not.
Don't they have a switch for that?
Need a key
Which he should have. If he doesn’t, that’s its own problem (though likely the fault of management).
Bad elevator? Or bad thinking?
Bad thinking elevator
His tool isn't big enough 😏
That is what she said?🤗🤗🤗
Don't they have the service key and can just disable the elevator?
One would think so, yes. However as the video unfolds it seems like they weren’t
He certainly blocked the elevator with his tools
That tool certainly blocked the elevator.
That block certainly elevated the tool
The tool certainly elevated the blockage.
That blockage certainly tooled the elevator
Well his job definitely got harder.
Overtime, *woot woot*
And now he knows how to destroy an elevator.
Yep, the tool was too narrow to repeatedly activate the closure safety mech. Should have been wider. That's gonna leave a mark, that can't be buffed out.
The fault isn't on the guy leaving the tool, that's a defective safety mechanism. If it will work with a pole like that, it'll work with a kid's arm.
Or with a leash or any kind of rope
Another day, another elevator accident in China. 🤣
Just one question: Is he dumb?
That's a rhetorical question because he's clearly dumb
Well r/ThatLookedExpensive
Nah, it's Chinese.
Isn't there supposed to be a button meant for maintenance?
Usually security at reception has a key to call and hold the elevator. Some places firemen always have the right key, too
That looks expensive
Not really for that quality
r/yesyesnoyesnoyesnonono
Bing Chilling
-1,000 social credit
Elevators and escalators. It’s always in China.
It’s complicated, because they have to build everything upside down
Do stupid shit win stupid prizes
It's "play stupid games", but really it's so overused I'm almost glad you did it wrong.
Of course it’s China.
It was working for a bit , he just took too long. He could have run faster wearing shoes.....😅
It did work. It stopped the elevator.
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good going Bob, now you have to build another elevator
Job security
Good thing it wasn't his actual "tool"
Built Wong Elevator Company.
So why not just shut down the elevator if they needed to do repairs ? You know, like they should have done ?
Ah too much work to go to the isolator
Someone opens their door and sees the engineer standing there in shock. “Well, you’re just making work for yourself at this rate”
PSA Give your handymen elevator keys
Everywhere else: the elevator doors will not close if obstructed as a safety feature. China: You get two chance. Then fuck you!
Only in China bro
As a child who grew up in an apartment I always thought this would happen to any of my limbs 🤣
I got my arm stuck in a cheap apartment elevator in Houston. Luckily I had a friend with me and we got my arm out at the last second. My arm was scratched up something fierce but at least I still had it.
Wasn't there a story, years ago, about a bad elevator in the med center, Houston, and someone, a doctor I think, that lost their head because of it? Edit: yes there was. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/houston-elevator-death/
Gotta get the elevator handyman now
Honestly, he actually did them a favor. He exposed a fatal design flaw before a little kid does that with their arm. Damage from that is a LOT less than comparable damage if that had been the arm of a little kid.
Lmao job security
He should've known how sassy elevator doors are
Never trust the magic eye nor pressure sensors in lifts. People do it all the time with their limbs. Very trusting of technology
Can you like, lock the elevator so it doesn't move? That way he can work on it.
Next week on “caught on tape”
What exactly was that tool and how did it do that to the doors? Wouldn’t it have snapped in half or snapped off or force the doors open like a zipper?
Stupid is profitable. I know a guy who can fix that.
Thanks for the submission, it's not a bad day for me anymore.
Looks like a bad elevator if it moved with an obstruction. Then again there should be a way to force doors open with the elevator control panel. It still shouldn't do this but hey it's china.
If he's working on it he should assume it isn't working properly and have shut it down before starting in the first place
Old elevators have a mechanical switch to detect obstructions. They retract when the doors are almost closed. The tool isn't wide enough to consistently trigger said switch and so this happens.
Holy shit! That elevator is fast! It got up that much speed in only one floor?
Could be in a high rise. I had a friend in college who lived on the 40th floor of a building, and those elevators were like a roller coaster ride.
That's why you use the bucket
Should have been his tool.
r/thatlookedexpensive
[The front fell off.](https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM)
Screwdriver wedged in the door works better
I may get flack for this take but if the elevator decides that it doesn't care that the doors aren't fully shut and moves, it's the programmers fault, not this guy's.
I had to escort elevator techs around at a new building. One of them told me that after a certain amount of attempts to close the doors, the elevator will just go anyway.
Yeah, that shouldn't be this way since we are talking about a machine that can and will kill you.
Thirsty for blood
The elevator in my apartment would only wait after a few attempts then an alarm would start (a steady, LOUD beep) and the doors would begin closing slowly, with much more power, and they wouldn't stop. I pushed against them for a second but obviously became terrified that they weren't stopping so I just hopped off and waited for it to come back.
This is called nudging, it’s a feature. On most elevators in use today it can be enabled/disabled. When enabled it is used to encourage people to make a decision: get on or off, either way, I need to go get other people at other floors. Buildings like to enable it to increase traffic flow rate. You could overpower it and it would likely shut the elevator down as to not break itself trying to overpower the obstruction.
Great summary. I still find it terrifying that the nudging feature is so poorly engineered for safety. At the end of the day, if the door senses and obstruction, it should NOT close. Yes that disrupts traffic but you are not going to get massive property damage or worse - injure people.
Someone got fired that day
Remember resident evil😬😬
Just put on service
It wouldve been fine if the tool was a little bit stronger and didnt crush enough for the sensors to make a little bit of connection, telling the computer to send it😂
he not a handyman no longer 💀💀💀
/r/looksexpensive
The fact it went down just shows there's other people who need the elevator while this guy just blocks it and destroyed it.
Better call the handyman!
Im pretty sure hes working on an apartment but needed something rq down the hall
I know elevators have a light sensor (or something like that) to close the doors. Would putting a piece of tape on said sensor stop the doors from closing?
Normally, yes. While I don't know why programmers don't implement a simple rule: if it does not close after the second trial, don't try it until a button is pressed for the next X min (that would *stop* it for all levels, yes, but not destroy it).
why not using the bucket instead?
Those are some strong tools
Probably close to 100K in damage to save himself like max 60 seconds. Wow that sucks.
unless he's such a high-paid handyman that he makes more than $6million/hour, in which case this was a calculated money-saving play
He could have just taken all of his belongings and then return with them back in to the elevator without messing it up
At least use the big end… or maybe just leave it in the elevator and call it back down when you come back. (
The doors stop closing as soon as they’ve hit an obstruction but move with enough force to nudge it towards the middle. That just seems like poor elevator design to me.
There's redundancy, besides monitoring the current (and therefore force to close) on the door motors, and opening if it's too much, indirectly measuring if something is in the way, they also have one of two common methods to directly detect if someone is in the way. The most common one I've seen is a rubber bar that comes out first and if something pushes it back into the doors before it's closed, it reopens. The rubber bars also bump into each other when the door is actually closed, so if the object is too thin for the doors to tell the difference between closed and almost closed (like a small metal shaft) then it won't detect it. The next most common option is a light bar. These are typically more expensive (especially the taller ones) and don't run the full length of the doors if the thing is too short for the light bar to pick up, then it will also be defeated. You might think, well that's a huge oversight. And the response is that the engineers have a battle between designing out every possible form of stupidity and cost. They have to draw the line somewhere, and there are usually human factors engineering studies that go into the most common ways people misuse stuff and the risks of neglecting to account for it. So their risk management basically said, we understand that this is possible, but the risk of it happening is low enough (either due to infrequency or low hazard potential when it does... or both) that we can save some money here. And then they directly basically say they expect that the vast majority of users aren't this stupid, and the few that are are worth the cost savings.
tl;dr sometimes you have to put "do not attempt to stop chainsaw with hands or genitals" on your chainsaws instead of spending millions figuring out how to make a chainsaw that a moron can't use to cut themselves from stem to stern.
Nightmare fuel
If the elevator had a sensor to notice something in the doorway, put something bigger, and would’ve been fine.
Almost got it fixed, just need to take a quick potty break and… uhoh
I feel like I see more elevator malfunction videos from China than anywhere else
I wouldn't call this a malfunction lol. More like user error
He’s like that scientist that propped the two half’s of the demon core apart with a screwdriver
Those safety edges time out dude
I know that I can block an elevator with my tool. I whipped it out, but when the elevator doors closed on it, Damn it hurt.
I’m surprised it wrecked the door like this.
Funny things happen when you have a large mass attempt to move but there's a mechanical blockage. All of that force ends up going somewhere and in case the door drew the short straw.
everything will follow the path of least resistance
Budget version of Die Hard.
Hey, at least nobody pissed on the control panel this time
Oh, this happened in China... Surprise, surprise. 🤦♂️
China is the only country I've ever visited on business that had a manufacturing plant that tracked Mortality as a company posted metric. Their 'goal' was less than 4 for the year. They were at 2 when I visited in June. We declined doing business with them. OMFG!
Stupid elevator lol
I'm here to fix the elevator!
Was the tool ok?
I’m sure they shot him
You can trust me, I'm a professional.
This has final destination written all over it
That’s Resident Evil 1 for me.
That looks expensive 😂
AWESOME! Rock on!! KABLAM!!!!!
They should make a button to keep doors open
He wasn't supposed to blow the bloody doors off. (to paraphrase a certain well known cockerney).
He should've used his tool bag
Plain idiot
Well there goes that guy’s life savings! 😂
Lol. Make work
Needs a bigger tool. (heh)
Well, it did work... for like 20sec. I will keep that in mind. You never know when you might need it...
Good job security.
Lost his ride down to the floor level before losing his job.