Chinese woman critically injured after being trapped between doors of lift as it shoots up 15 floors

An elderly Chinese woman narrowly escaped death after suffering critical injuries on Tuesday evening when one of her legs was trapped between the doors of a lift as it shot up 15 floors, mainland media reports.

The woman, 58, identified by her surname Zhang, was stepping into the lift on the ground floor of the decades-old Fangqunyuan residential building, in Beijing’s Fengtai district, just as it malfunctioned and moved upwards with its door still open, trapping her left leg between the doors, the Beijing Youth Daily reported.

A second passenger, identified only by her surname Du, managed to free Zhang’s severely injured left leg, which had become jammed between the doors and the lift wall.

“I finally managed to pull out her leg after the lift went up for a while,” Du was quoted as saying. “It wasn’t until the doors opened that I realised we were already on the top floor.”

Zhang suffered severe loss of blood. The artery in her left thigh was ruptured and her left calf also suffered numerous fractures.