Mom shares warning after daughter's arm gets stuck in elevator
Loni Garatziotis has filed a lawsuit alleging negligence.
A mom is sharing a warning for other parents after her daughter's arm was caught in an elevator last year.
Loni Garatziotis of Florida and her three children were visiting Hoboken, New Jersey, where they used to live, last August. They were with friends and planned to go swimming at 1450 Washington at Hudson Tea, an apartment building.
Garatziotis said her daughter Zoe, then 5, had her hand on the elevator door when the elevator they were traveling in started opening up on the seventh floor. But while the door was moving, Zoe's left arm was apparently sucked into the space between the elevator door and elevator wall.
"Me and my friend Jen grabbed the elevator [door] so it wouldn't pull her in more and my friend Nicole was with her down there trying to figure out how to get her arm out," Garatziotis told New York ABC station WABC.
According to Garatziotis, a friend tried to use hand sanitizer from their purse to spread on Zoe's arm and try to lubricate it to pull out her arm. This tactic proved unsuccessful, but she said a neighbor, who had heard the commotion, then passed along a bottle of lotion for them to try.
"She put [the lotion] on her arm and then … she pulled her arm free, luckily," Garatziotis said.
Security camera footage from the elevator caught the three-minutelong harrowing incident on tape, including the moment when the friend helped Zoe pull her arm free, with both falling backward toward the side of the elevator.
Afterward, first responders took Zoe to an area hospital where Garatziotis said she received 20 stitches on her wrist.
Garatziotis has since filed a lawsuit against Taylor Management Company, the owner and management firm of 1450 Washington at Hudson Tea, and Kone Elevators and Escalators of Northern New Jersey, the elevator company, alleging negligence and product liability.
In separate responses to the lawsuit filed in court, both Taylor Management and Kone denied any wrongdoing.
The lawsuit is currently pending in a New Jersey civil court and a trial date has not yet been set.
In a statement to "Good Morning America," elevator company Kone said, "KONE does not comment on pending litigation, but we are aware of an incident that occurred at 1450 Washington in Hoboken, New Jersey on August 25, 2023. We regretted hearing about the incident when we received a lawsuit, and our thoughts go out to the injured individual. Safety is an integral part of who we are and what we do at KONE. We remain steadfast in our commitment to moving people safely every day."
Edward Capozzi, an attorney for Garatziotis, told WABC the gap between the elevator door and the elevator gap at the time of the incident was allegedly "too big," arguing it should've been much smaller.
Capozzi also said the Garatziotis family hopes companies will add warning signs to elevators to prevent what allegedly happened to Zoe from happening to anyone else.
The Elevator Escalator Safety Foundation, a nonprofit formed by elevator industry organizations, shares elevator safety tips for children on its website and offers a "Safe T-Rider" program for kids. The foundation emphasizes leaving any closing elevator doors alone.
The organization's top four rules for elevator safety include:
- Watch your step.
- Leave closing doors alone.
- If doors don't open, ring the alarm button and wait..
- If there is a fire in the building, use the stairs.
This article has been updated to include comment from Kone Elevators and Escalators of Northern New Jersey.
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