Hi there, if you are stuck with this and need some cheap but cmpliant training then drop me a line rgeorge@allinsafety.org.uk. With reagrds to legislation then PUWER regulations stipulate that you must proivide trainign to use equipment provided, and emergency plans must be drafted under the management regs.

Not sure I agree with that response as a general rule of thumb.

Whenever I have inspected smaller premises with lifts (health clubs etc) I've always expected that somoene is trained in how to manually release the lift if necessary (which many lifts have the facility for, unless it is a tower block!). Rescue from the lift company could take a long time.

I hate lifts. Don't go in them unless I absolutely have to. I have been known to walk to the top of tower blocks just to avoid them. Not that I think that they're dangerous but the thought of being stuck for hours and hours on end scares the living daylights out of me as I'm claustrophobic!

Clairel
Being such an outdoors type and living in Yorkshire i would have put money on you having tried caving (Yorkshire ok for caving but not enough horizontal passage for a S Wales based almost ex-caver like me).
Or is that how you came to realise you're claustrophobic?

Or raise it?

Depends on load, type of lift, type of manual controls.

That's what I mean.

I have general issues with "training" people for emergency situations which may never happen, particularly where there is no opportunity to practice.

Some things are best left to the practiced experts, as opposed to the false sense of a security of having people "trained" and a company earning a few quid from delivering training.

Funnily enough, I did my training yesterday....

LOLER requires that lifts have a means of getting people out of the lift. "Every employer shall ensure that lifting equipment for lifting persons … is such that a person trapped in any carrier is not thereby exposed to danger and can be freed."

BS7255 section 4.8 specifically describes the safe release of trapped lift passengers. The process is not rocket science, frankly.

The training basically boils down to:

1: Stop people trying to get out on their own. Most deaths and injuries are because people start clambering about in shafts or over gaps.

2: Switch it off and switch it on again. If that gets it to a floor, let the people out then take the lift out of service and get the maintenance company out.

3: How to manually raise or lower it in case there really is a need to release someone (eg, they go into labour while trapped in the lift, or the building catches fire, or some such). However, mostly, don't even attempt it.

4: If you can't raise or lower it easily by the BS method, then don't try anything else yourself at all, even if the occupant does go into labour. Call the maintenance people or the fire brigade (who will charge you).

That is, there's more about what not to do than about actually doing anything. There is no equipment needed. There's no procedure that's not already defined (the installation must have the release procedure defined already - it's probably stuck up on the wall in your motor room)

Having been through the process I think the risks are lower in having trained people that know that in most circumstances the right course of action is not to attempt a rescue. If there's a designated trained person, they will be found, and they will then have the knowledge to know not to start prising open doors and clambering in the mechanics.

I think there is no 'false sense of security'. There is in fact the genuine security of then having someone who knows that the proper course of action really is to wait till the lift technician gets there.

LOL..

Yeah, we were never known for our subtlety!

Effective.. but never pretty!

Nothing wrong in principle with the old IT Helpdesk apporach as described by achrn above ("Switch it off then on again)...........?