Posted By Phil Atkinson Are there any practitioners out there with responsibilities for buildings with lifts? (there must be). If so what are your contingencies for effecting a rescue should a lift car be stuck between floors. As I understand it there are three options: 1. Train your own staff to wind the lift car manually. Has safety implications for passengers and those doing the winding. 2. Rely on emergency call out from retained lift engineers - could be up to 4 hours response time! Not good for customer care 3. Call fire brigade - I gather that this is a service that some brigades charge for and others don't. It may become a mandatory chargeable service in the future - this is however aside from the moral issue of burdening the brigade who may be required for other "genuine" emergencies. I would welcome any comments from those with experience of preparing contingencies for such eventualities.

Posted By John Donaldson We have over 30 lifts on our campus and with the misuse that does takes place we often have to carry out lift releases. I prefer not to call them rescues. The lift types range from wound with plant rooms both at roof level and ground level, hydraulic both direct and indirect and a paternoster. Our duty engineers are all trained to carry out the releases assisted by our own Patrol Officers who have also received training. In the event there was a real emergency, before our own engineers could attended, our Patrol Officers would then release without the engineer being present. To effect a safe release you do need at least 3 persons present who are in communication with each other at all times. I don’t think its acceptable to have to wait 4 hours for a lift engineer to attend or to call the Fire Brigade out in our particular circumstances. With all due respect to the Fire Brigade if they effect a rescue the lift could well be put out of use for some time.

Posted By Phil Atkinson Steve/John/Richard Thanks for your comments guys. Very helpful and useful. I am coming down on the training of our own staff, which is fine during the day, but presents difficulties at night when the buildings are used for functions, but the only people on site would be catering (contractor) staff. I suppose the fallback under these circumstances would be the brigade if the passengers are in distress and cannot wait 4 hours for the engineer.

Posted By Phil Atkinson Great link Alistair - very useful