Lift turns death trap for kid

COIMBATORE:  In a tragic incident, a  four-year-old girl was killed when she was trapped between the front and inner doors of a lift in a apartment, here on Saturday.According to sources, Lakendar Kumar (32), an electricals shop owner at KK Lane in Kattur, was living with his wife Savitha and two children - Kashish (6) and Chavinagar(4) - at Varthaman Apartment in Range Gounder Street.On Saturday, Chavinagar, who was playing outside the house, was found missing.Family members, who began searching for her, found her trapped between the doors of the apartment lift.After breaking open the front door of the lift, they took the child to a hospital, where doctors declared her brought dead.A neighbour, Roshan, said, “Only when the lift was moving upwards, we could notice through the glass window that she was trapped between the doors of the lift.  As the front door of the lift was locked, we broke the glass and found her lying still. Then, we used a drill to open the front door of the lift and took her out.”A police source said, “The girl might have tried to get into the lift by opening the front door. As there was a ‘door-closer arm’ fitted in the front door of the lift, it could have closed automatically, making it impossible for her to either enter the lift, or come out, as the front door was locked. When the lift was operated from the fourth floor, it moved upwards. The girl might have got crushed to death in between the doors of the lift.” P Shanmugam, a watchman in the apartment, said, “There was no lift operator here. Whenever there is a problem, I switch off power supply and get the lift down manually. On Saturday, when I was having lunch, Chavinagar’s relative came and told me that Chavinagar was trapped inside the lift I switched off the power supply and rushed to the third floor. But the family had already got the girl out.” Coimbatore Medical College Hospital Resident Medical Officer P Sivaprakasam said, “The girl’s death was due to shock caused by the accident. Some of her ribs were broken, but there was no head injury.” The child’s body was returned to the family after a postmortem.