FIREFIGHTERS IN MINNESOTA TOWN PRACTICE ELEVATOR RESCUE

Members of the Rochester Fire Department (RFD) in Rochester, Minnesota’s third-largest city with a population of approximately 215,880, recently underwent hands-on elevator-rescue training at the local Holiday Inn, KIMT News 3 reports. The RFD is performing such training to gain a better understanding of building layout before responding to an elevator entrapment. The department received 25 elevator-entrapment calls in 2017. A firefighter told the source that elevators are brought down slowly during an entrapment, after which firefighters gain access to the cab and release the occupants. The source noted that elevator systems’ fall-prevention features mean that elevator falls are “very rare.”