7-year-old dies in elevator accident at Outer Banks vacation home, NC fire chief says
A child visiting the Outer Banks in North Carolina with his family died after he got stuck in an elevator at their rental home, according to local officials and media reports.
Emergency personnel responded to a call around 7 p.m. Sunday about a boy from Canton, Ohio, stuck in an elevator at a vacation house in Corolla, WAVY reported. The house is on Franklyn Street in the Corolla Light neighborhood, just south of the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge toward the northern tip of the Outer Banks.
Crews found a 7-year-old stuck between the elevator car and the shaft when they arrived, Currituck County Fire-EMS Chief Ralph Melton told The Coastland Times.
EMS attempted to resuscitate him, the newspaper reported, but he was pronounced dead on the scene.
“We are not sure exactly how it happened,” Melton said, according to The Coastland Times. “The child was entrapped in the doors. We were able to free him, but his head and neck were crushed by the elevator and he died as a result.”
Citing Corolla Fire Chief Rich Shortway, The Washington Post reported the boy had been “trapped between the bottom of the elevator car and the home’s upper door frame.” His neck was reportedly crushed when he got stuck between an accordion door on the elevator itself and an outer door.
The family had arrived at the house to start their vacation earlier that day, according to the Post.
“It’s just such a terrible tragedy,” he told the newspaper.
The Currituck County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted an investigation into the incident, concluded it was an accident, The Outer Banks Voice reported.
Melton told the media outlet there have been several other “close calls” with kids playing in elevators recently, but this is the first death, The Coastland Times reported.
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 12:47 PM with the headline "7-year-old dies in elevator accident at Outer Banks vacation home, NC fire chief says."
