Mexican couple miraculously survives 84-story elevator fall during skyscraper visit

Jaime Montemayor, his wife, and four more people survived the 84-story fall of the elevator of the building located in 875 North Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

The accident took place in the building formerly known as the John Hancock Center. It is the fourth tallest building in the city, revealed the Chicago Tribune. The Montemayor family and the rest of the guests entered the elevator after leaving the Signature Room.

It is a bar located on the 95th floor that has a stunning view of the city’s downtown. While going down, two of the cables holding the car broke. Soon after that, dust entered the elevator, and loud noises were also present.

THEY THOUGHT THEY WOULD DIE

Jaime revealed that all passengers started to scream, cry, and pray as they believed they were going to die. Thankfully, the elevator stopped near the 11th floor, and the fall was not as hard as expected, so they all survived.

Soon after the incident, firefighters arrived. After a while, they located the car and made a hole in the concrete wall as there was no access door at that floor. They finally pulled to safety all six passengers in a process that took about three hours, reported USA Today.

FIREFIGHTER’S THOUGHTS ON THE INCIDENT

"It was a pretty precarious situation where we had the cables that were broke were on top of the elevator. We couldn't do an elevator-to-elevator rescue. We had to breach a wall on the 11th floor of the parking garage in order to open up the elevator doors," said Chicago Fire Department Battalion Chief Patrick Maloney.

EVERYBODY WAS OKAY

Thankfully, none of the passengers needed to go to the hospital. The elevator had been inspected for failures in July, less than four months before the accident. Even though it is known that a “hoist rope" caused the accident, the accident is still under investigation.

ANOTHER TRAGIC INCIDENT

Jaime, his wife, and the rest of the people in the elevator were very lucky to walk out of that accident alive. Rocío Cortes Nunez, unfortunately, died in a similar accident. Right after having a C-section at the Our Lady of Valme Hospital in Seville, Spain, the hospital staff was taking Rocío to a third-floor maternity unit.

However, the elevator that was supposed to take them to the third floor stopped working, so the nurse pushed the stretcher out of the car when it started ascending, killing Rocío almost instantly. She is survived by three daughters and her husband.