Four students from Hyderabad sustained severe injuries after a lift they were in collapsed when one of the cables snapped, at a service apartment in Pulakeshi Nagar, on Sunday night.
The injured have been identified as Akshara, 20, Tanushree Bose, 24, Falaq Patel, 20, and Ishika. 20.
All four are second-year law students of Symbiosis Law School in Hyderabad. They had come to Bengaluru for an internship for two weeks.
They were staying at Silver Nest Apartment on M.M. Road in Frazer Town for the past one week.
According to the police, the incident happened around 9.30 p.m. when the four took the lift from the third floor to the ground floor. Tanushree had visited her cousin’s house in Palace Guttahalli and had returned to the apartment, and the girls were stepping out for dinner.
The lift came to a stop abruptly on the first floor and Tanushree managed to step out. But then, the lift cable snapped from the sheave (pulley) sending the lift car hurtling down through the lift well. Tanushree fell through the lift well on top of the lift while the others were stuck inside the lift car, Hosmat hospital sources said.
Other residents alerted the fire and emergency service personnel. They rescued the injured girls who were shifted to Hosmat Hospital around midnight after getting first aid at a nearby hospital.
Tanushree sustained fractures on the pelvic bones, sacrum (tail bone), unstable fractures in the right ankle, left forearm and a cut over the face and nose. She is in the ICU for observation and will undergo surgeries for her fractures, a hospital statement said.
Akshara sustained a fracture in the right leg, fracture of one of the bones of the foot and a dislocation of an ankle joint in the left leg. She underwent multiple emergency surgeries in the wee hours of Monday.
Falaq Patel sustained a fracture on the right ankle and underwent surgery while Ishika has been treated as an outpatient for pain and soft tissue injury to the right ankle, the statement added.
The Pulakeshi Nagar police visited the spot after being intimated by the hospital. They are awaiting recovery of the victims to record their statements. They have taken up a case of negligence causing grievous injuries against the building owner and the lift maintenance company.
