Kliman: How elevator accidents happen

Joe Eskenazi of San Francisco Weekly continues to do great research on the death of Dan Kliman. Today he has posted scenarios of ways an elevator repairman can fall to his death from an elevator stuck between floors based on an interview with an elevator repairman he refers to as "Ozzy":

The first scenario Ozzy postulated involved an elevator car stuck more than halfway up the outer doors. In order to get out, one would need to force open both the inner and outer doors. Ozzy notes that many people in this situation choose to exit the elevator car feet-first while on their stomachs. And when one can't quite reach the "sill" of the outer door with his feet, then this becomes an extremely dangerous maneuver. When pushing oneself backward with the arms, momentum causes the legs to move upward toward a sitting position. Because of this, many repairmen have plunged down elevator shafts.

Ozzy's second scenario is perhaps even more disturbing. Many trapped elevator operators manage to pry open both the inner and outer sets of doors. They then sit on the floor of the elevator car and dangle their legs over the edge before leaping out of the car and through both sets of open doors. Instinctually, however, many balance themselves against the outer elevator doors - which, counter-intuitively, offer no resistance and move. This could cause someone to lose his or her balance and fall down the shaft.

"A lot of elevator men have been killed by forcing doors open and leaping out of elevators," said Ozzy. "Elevators are super safe. But when people get stuck, they want to get out as fast as they can, so they try to [escape]. Stay in there. Inside is the safest place to be - unless there's a fire."

Dan Kliman #5 : Did He Have His Cell Phone?

Joe Ezkenazi, the San Francisco Weekly reporter who has been covering the death of Dr. Daniel Kliman in a fall down an elevator shaft at the Sharon Building, has gone over to the Sharon building to test if his cell phone would work in an elevator. He says

While I was able to place a cell phone call out of the Sharon Building elevators, the manager told me that service is "hit or miss."

I have seen nothing in the media on whether Dan Kliman had his cell phone with him. We do know his laptop was found at the scene as well as significant cash. But did he have his cell phone?

Certainly if he had his cell phone, he would have called someone before going through the scenario the police have hypothesized. When someone I know got stuck in an old elevator in the downtown area of San Francisco a while ago, she used her cell phone and called for help. Then she decided she should call 911. The SF fire department came and had the elevator open in about 45 minutes.

Dan Kliman #4: He Always Takes the Stairs

Kristi Hastings-Oliver has sent me the following email:

Hi!
You don't know me but I just read your comments anout Dan and your question of whether he takes the stairs or not... HE ALWAYS DOES! I used to work for Dan and when his office was still in the old Alameda Hospital building he was always up and down those stairs. He would say elevators are too slow.
FYI

Dan Kliman #3: Elevator Doors Should Never Open More Than 4 Inches

Dean Fryer, spokesman for the California Department of Occupational Safety and Health says the elevator doors in the Sharon building "should never open if they are between floors,”. However, the doors would have had to have been open wide enough for Dan Kliman to have squeezed through in the accidental death scenario hypothesized by the San Francisco police investigating the death of Dr. Daniel Kliman, MD. (Early posts on 1. the discovery of the death and concerns about Sharia Law here and 2. developing suspicions here.)

Here's the part of the new article from the San Francisco Examiner the focuses on the elevator issue:

Ed Donoghue, spokesman for the National Elevator Industry, said that there are a “number of incidents” each year when stranded passengers fall to their deaths after prying open elevator doors, especially in older models.

“We see instances where people try to slide out on their stomachs on the bottom of the cars,” Donoghue said. “And somehow the body gets underneath the car and falls down the shaft.”

Donoghue said there are no national statistics on falling deaths in elevators. He said in the mid-1980s, a national requirement was put into place to prevent elevator doors from opening.

Despite Donoghue’s assertions that these scenarios not only happen, but they do with some frequency, officials from the state agency that monitors elevators say it’s impossible to open the doors — if the machinery is functioning properly.

California’s elevator laws, which were established in 1989, stipulate that the doors cannot be opened more than 4 inches once the car is 18 inches above the landing, according to Dean Fryer, spokesman for the California Department of Occupational Safety and Health.

Although the elevators in the Sharon Building are more than 90 years old, they were modernized in 1976 and passed an annual safety inspection Nov. 4, according to Erika Monterozza, a spokeswoman for Cal-OSHA.

Cal-OSHA inspectors annually test elevators on their compliance with the law, and on Nov. 4, workers inspected the elevators at the Sharon Building, Fryer said.

During that test, inspectors stopped the elevators between every floor in the building, and at no time where they able to pry open the doors from the inside, beyond the mandated 4-inch gap.

“These doors should never open if they are between floors,” Fryer said.

He said his department would have a better idea of what happened once they get a chance to conduct their own investigation into the elevator.

The elevator at the Sharon Building is maintained by Kone Inc., a Finnish-based company that has offices in San Francisco. Chuck Moore, spokesman for the company, said Kone has not been allowed to inspect the elevator, and thus could not offer any comment on the case, other than to express condolences for Kliman’s family.

The San Francisco Police Department would also not comment on the case, citing the ongoing investigation.

Kliman’s friend Dardik said the theory that Kliman pried himself out of the stalled elevator makes sense for two reasons. One was that Kliman tended to be an impatient person, and the second was the doctor’s formidable physical strength, which makes the scenario of manually prying open the door a possibility.

“It was late at night near the holiday,” Dardik said. “I’m sure he didn’t want to be stuck in there overnight. There is a chance he saw the landing and thought ‘hey I can do this.’”

Dardik said that Kliman’s laptop and a significant amount of cash were found at the scene — further indicating that his death was accidental.

Many other circumstances surrounding Kliman’s death are still outstanding.

Hat Tip: Zomblog

More on the Peculiar Case of Dr. Dan Kliman, M.D.

Since my first post on this case, the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that "a task force including officers from the department's hate crimes and homicide units has been formed to look into Kliman's death."

And one of Dan's patients, who maintains the blog CFS Warrior, has posted some information that indicates Dan had had an unusual experience a few days before his death that "rattled" him and caused "a little red flag to go up about" his safety:

Dr. Kliman shared with me that he had been to the Israeli consulate the week prior to 11/20. I don't know what day it was. He said that as he pulled up on his bike a man suddenly came up to him put his face next to Dr. Kliman's and said "Dan?" Dr. Kliman didnt' know who the guy was, said he looked American, and when he said yes I'm Dan, the guy broke out in fluent Hebrew or Arabic (I can't remember). Dr. Kliman said he's been to the consulate many, many times and this had never occurred before. He was a little rattled that the man knew who he was but Dan didn't recognize him. This occurred outside the consulate.

When Dr. Kliman entered the consulate he was searched and his computer, ipod, cell phone were all put in a secured area. He was very surprised this and said this had never happened before.

He wasn't so concerned about what occurred at the consolute-very puzzled by it since it was something that had never occurred before but he was rattled by the man who approached him outside the consulate. Dr. Kliman was not easily rattled by anything. A little red flag went up about his safety.

Of note, the man did not accompany Dr. Kliman into the consulate. Could it be that the consulate saw words exchanged between Dr. Kliman and this man and decided to increase their security? Or maybe it wasn't related at all. Maybe the increase in security measures taken by the consulate were just coincidence.

The Peculiar Case of Dr. Dan Kliman, M.D.

Dr. Dan Kliman's body was found in the elevator shaft of the San Francisco building where he attended classes in Arabic. Classes had been canceled last week, but Kliman apparently was not informed of this. He appeared to have died from a fall. Although the police are saying it was an accident, there is concern that he may have met with foul play. There are signs of a scuffle on the exterior elevator doors on the 7th floor where Kliman took his classes at the Pan Arabic Center according to the photos taken by Dave.



Dave says:

Remember that these are on the EXTERNAL doors that are ONLY on the 7th floor, not on other floors. In other words, the only way that those marks could have gotten there is that if there was some kind of struggle on the 7th floor (the floor of the PAR Arabic School where Dan was going for class), NOT any where else where the elevator car may have been stuck. The police are claiming that Dan tried to get out of a stuck elevator car, but the doors that you see on these pictures are the external doors on the 7th floor, which are stationary and do not move up and down with the car.

But who would do such a thing and why? Kliman was an activist in quite a few causes, and could be quite confrontational. Consider the following causes:

1) Vegetarianism (He was active in the Yahoo Group VeggieJews and is remembered for his contributions to discussions.

2) Bicycle Rights (He founded St. Louis Critical Mass and participated in Bay Area Critical Mass activities after moving here. Critical Mass is the organization that takes over city streets and harasses drivers following traffic rules.)

3) Pro-Israel (co-founder of S.F. Voice for Israel)

4) Gay Rights (recently campaigned against Prop 8).

There is little reason to suspect his advocacy for vegetarianism could have led to his death. His bicycle activism was confrontational and someone who remembers him from his St. Louis Critical Mass days wrote:

Dan Kliman was an acquired taste - many were put off by his strong opinions and loud voice. Others just hated his insistence on asserting his rights as a cyclist. He was certainly an in your face type. I figured if he were to die it would be because a motorist ran him over.

But it is hard to imagine a motorist would have stalked him and thrown him down an elevator shaft.

He did get into confrontations within the GLBT community over his advocacy for Israel. A few years ago, members of QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism) posted photos of this angry altercation. But Kliman had recently campaigned against Prop 8 and it is hard to imagine this was committed by someone in the GLBT community.

However, ed, a commenter at Zomblog reminds us:

don’t forget–one of the tenets of radical islam is to throw “unbelievers” off of the tops of buildings

Actually, this is true. I googled and found this post at IslamOnline titled Death Fall as Punishment for Homosexuality. The opinion of Sheikh `Abdel Khaliq Hasan Ash-Shareef concludes:

Some scholars hold the opinion that the homosexual should be thrown from a high building as a punishment for his crime, but other scholars maintain that he should be imprisoned until death.

Based on the above fact, we can conclude that, the judge is invested with full discretion as to whether this man is to be thrown from a high place or not, as a punishment for his crime. However, if the man survives death fall, the judge has the right to sentence him to death.

But who would do such a thing? Debbie Schlussel has one hypothesis:

On this site, I've repeatedly written about Ismael Ahmed, who founded and for decades ran ACCESS--the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, which has soaked taxpayers for billions to bring in thousands of Muslim illegal aliens, fund their every social service need, defraud Medicaid, and provide job-training for several Al-Qaeda terrorists. Ahmed now runs the Michigan Department of Human Services.

As I've noted, when Ahmed's first wife, an American non-Muslim, wanted to divorce him, he took her on a trip to New York. Suddenly, she was found dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft under construction. He apparently got rid of her and got away with it.

Now, the same thing has happened to Dan Kliman, MD, a gay pro-Israel activist in San Francisco. Like Ahmed's wife, his body was found at the bottom of an elevator shaft under construction, in the building where he was taking Arabic language instruction.

Coincidence? Sorry, but there are no coincidences. Not ones like this. Gay, a Jew, pro-Israel, and American--hmmm . . . a perfect four-in-one target for a Muslim kill

Actually that fall from a tall building thing is Islamic punishment for adultery as well as homosexual behavior. I wonder if this Ahmed suspected his first wife of adultery?

And I wonder how long the San Francisco Police will be able to maintain this was an accident?