SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Fire Department says a woman has been safely rescued after her car crashed through Sheetrock in a hospital parking garage and plunged 10 feet down an elevator shaft.
The driver was alone in her car on the third level of a parking garage at Virginia Mason Hospital on Monday afternoon when the crash happened. Fire Lt. Sue Stangl said rescuers made sure the power was out and the elevator turned off before they went down to the fourth level, broke through a wall and pulled her out.
Stangl said the woman is in her 60s and appears to be uninjured.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.
Car Crashes Down Seattle Elevator Shaft
Driver freed after car broke through wall and dropped down garage shaft
Car Drops Down Seattle Garage Elevator
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Car Drops Down Seattle Garage Elevator |
| Bystanders look down from a pedestrian walkway to view the scene where a car crashed through Sheetrock and plunged 10 feet down an elevator shaft in a parking garage, Monday, May 9, 2011, in Seattle. Firefighters were able to break through another wall and rescue the driver. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) |
![]() |
Car Drops Down Seattle Garage Elevator |
| Bystanders look down from a pedestrian walkway to view the scene where a car crashed through Sheetrock and plunged 10 feet down an elevator shaft in a parking garage, Monday, May 9, 2011, in Seattle. Firefighters were able to break through another wall and rescue the driver. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) |
![]() |
Car Drops Down Seattle Garage Elevator |
| Firefighters walk out of the parking garage where a car crashed through Sheetrock and plunged 10 feet down an elevator shaft, Monday, May 9, 2011, in Seattle. Firefighters were able to break through another wall and rescue the driver. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) |
![]() |
Car Drops Down Seattle Garage Elevator |
| Mike Donah, elevator inspector, looks into an elevator shaft where a woman in her 60s crashed her car through a wall and into the elevator shaft at an underground parking garage in the Virginia Mason Medical Center, Monday, May 9, 2011 in Seattle. The vehicle traveled about about 10 feet down to the next floor after her car crashed through the sheetrock. The woman was taken to a Seattle hospital as a precaution. (AP Photo/Erika Schultz, Pool) |
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