Jersey City firefighters save 2 teen girls from stuck elevator by rappelling 60 feet to bring them up
Two teen girls were rescued from a stuck elevator at NJ Transit's Ninth Street/Congress Street light rail station over the weekend.
It happened Saturday at 6:50 p.m. The girls, 15, were trapped in the elevator shaft for two hours after it came to a halt in the shaft about 20 feet off the ground.
Because the elevator was in the middle of the shaft, Jersey City firefighters had to rescue them from above, using high-angle rescue techniques. They rappelled 60 feet down the elevator shaft, attached harnesses to the trapped teens, and brought them up.
There were no injuries.
The elevator takes commuters from the station platform in Hoboken up the Palisades cliffs to Jersey City. So far, there's no word on what caused it to stop.
"Beinig stuck for two hours, that would bother me. I'm not going to lie," one Jersey City resident said.
"Makes me not want to use it anymore," Jersey City resident Maxine Stanford said.
Former FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Bullock talked about the importance of technical training.
"One reason, you never know when you're going to do it. It's used for confined space. Confined space is when there's a limited area to get out, and someone is trapped, and you have to straight down to get them," Bullock said. "It's constant training. And because it's so much training, it's usually limited to a certain group of people in the fire department."
Jersey City officials posted about the rescue on social media.
"This is what years of technical rescue training looks like in action. Jersey City firefighters are ready — day or night, rain or shine, 60 feet underground or above the skyline," they wrote.
