5 stuck in elevator in Boston high-rise saved by firefighters: "It's a risky, dangerous situation"

Five people trapped in an elevator in Boston were saved in a dramatic high-rise rescue Monday night.

It took a few hours, but Boston firefighters lifted them out one-by-one, more than a dozen stories through an elevator shaft at 60 State Street.

Boston Deputy Fire Chief James Greene said the group was in a blind shaft near the third floor when the elevator stopped. A mechanic was called in but he couldn't get the elevator moving so a technical rescue began.

"This was far from routine, having to go out on ropes. It's a risky, dangerous situation. But the specially trained firefighters, the tech rescue firefighters, did a great job to make it as safe as possible," Greene told CBS News Boston.

The firefighters were lowered from ropes from above, then hoisted the people up more than 200 feet.

Greene said the building's design complicated the rescue. The elevator that got stuck was an express that runs from the first floor straight to the 18th. That means there are no other doors along the way. The only way to get to the elevator was from above.

"We lifted them out one-by-one. What we do is we lower two firefighters, probably about 200 feet from floor 18 down to the third floor, and once they get down there they make patient, they make contact with the patients. We set them up with a harness, and then we actually will hoist them up the same way we just lowered them, up to floor 18, bring them to safety," Green said.

No one was hurt. The deputy chief praised firefighters for keeping everyone calm.

"It's a pretty scary thing to be in an elevator shaft on a harness. There's a lot of trust involved in that," he said.

The elevator company is now looking into what caused the incident, according to Greene.