Injuries caused by a free fall in an elevator shaft from the 5th floor: About a case

Abstract

Elevator-related accidents are rare but can cause serious injury. In the United States, elevator and escalator accidents seriously injure nearly 17, 100 people and kill around 30 per year. No African study would have reported such an aetiology. This observation concerns a 38-year-old patient who allegedly free-falled into the shaft of an elevator from the 5th Floor with a reception on the roof of the cabin, which was blocked on the ground floor. Accident in the course of which she presented with polytrauma associated with a fracture of the right anterior arch of the seventh rib, two wounds in the gluteal region, a floating knee on the right and a fracture of the left tibial pilon. She was admitted to the operating room for trimming and osteosynthesis. The postoperative course was uncomplicated. The objective of this work was to present a type of accident little known in our context but of which it is necessary to have an idea of the changes in our construction style.