48-Year-Old Woman Decapitated While Trying to Free Headphones From the Elevator Door

Stock image of an elevator. 3282700/Pixabay

A woman working in a plastic manufacturing factory in India was decapitated while she was trying to free her headphones from the elevator door on May 27.

Sushila Vishwakarma, 48, worked as a cleaner in the factory in the western city of Vadodara. She came to work at 8 a.m. and after cleaning the ground floor took the industrial elevator to the third floor when the incident happened, reported the Indian Express.

Police found her head on the ground floor while the rest of her body got transported to the third floor. The earphones were found still attached to her severed head and music from a playlist was found playing on her phone.

The phone was in her hands and was found with her decapitated body, according to the Times of India.

The woman was originally from the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and had migrated over 620 miles to the city for work.

“The elevator, which is without a roof, is used specifically for carrying goods. We are speculating that she was using her phone and absent-mindedly she tried to stick her head outside the lift, which started going up, and the accident happened. So her body was dragged till the last floor and head got severed,”  Investigating Officer M. N Saporiya of Bapod police station told the Indian Express.

Police are trying to find out if the elevator had problems and have registered a case of accidental death at the Bapod police station.

Fire officials recovered her body, and after post mortem examination, it was handed over to her family.

Incidents Related to Elevators

Accidents linked to elevators and escalators kill 30 people and injure 17,000 every year in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Elevators cause 90 percent of these deaths and 60 percent of the reported injuries.

A security guard at the JFK Airport was killed after being fatally crushed by an elevator on Feb. 20.

Dillon Jobe, 40 was working at the Queens airport when the elevator descended on top of him at 3:30 p.m., according to New York Post.

Jobe was working at a Lufthansa cargo building when the incident happened. “All workplace fatalities are tragedies and the agency, of course, will assist all parties in any way possible during the investigation of this sad event,” the Port Authority said in a statement.

In another incident that happened in New York this year, a woman got stuck in an elevator for three days while her employers were out for the weekend. The 53-year-old woman whose name was not released was locked in the elevator of a townhouse on East 65th Street near Madison Avenue, one block from Central Park, according to NBC 4 New York.

After a forced entry into the elevator, firefighters rescued her on Jan. 28 at 10:10 a.m. after receiving a 911 call. According to an Associated Press report, the incident happened in a townhouse owned by Warren A. Stephens and his wife, Harriet Stephens.

“The employee involved has been a valued member of the Stephens extended family for 18 years. The Stephens family is relieved and thankful that she is doing well in the hospital. A Stephens family member accompanied her to the hospital this morning and remains at her side. The cause of this unfortunate incident is being investigated and appropriate measures will be taken to ensure that something like this never happens again,” said a statement released by the Stephens’ investment bank based in Little Rock, Arkansas to NBC 4 New York.