A ‘self-made lift’ collapsed in a building in Palermo on the night of 16-17 November. A 32-year-old woman, mother of three children who were also involved in the accident, was seriously injured. The woman suffered trauma and deep injuries to her legs, while the children were less seriously injured. Another 71-year-old woman was also involved in the accident.

The ‘self-made lift’, according to a very first reconstruction reported by the press agencies, was built by a family member, who is said to be a locksmith and not a professional lift operator. He would be the man, as told to the police, who was helped down by the fire brigade with the help of a ladder because he had been stuck on the first floor because of the broken lift (reconstruction by SkyTg24). The lift was in fact used to get up and down from the house, as the building had no internal staircase. Probably due to the weight exceeding the maximum allowed, the ‘ropes’ supporting the ‘platform’ did not hold and broke. Another man was helped down by the fire brigade with the help of a ladder as he was stuck on the first floor due to the broken hoist. He would be, as he told the police, the blacksmith who built the lift.

The Palermo Public Prosecutor’s Office has ordered the seizure of the ‘lift’ that crashed, after forensic officers intervened in the building and carried out investigations on the system. It will be up to the investigators to clarify the dynamics of this accident. Elevatori Magazine expresses its closeness to the families of the injured and reiterates a strong appeal for safety.

Salvatore Nasca, an entrepreneur of a historic Palermo-based company in the lift sector, a member of the technical committee of Elevatori Magazine and co-founder of the ‘Consortium for Italy’, spoke on the case, stating to the microphones of Italpress and confirmed to Elevatori Magazine: “What is emerging is a borderline case. It seems that the fallen freight lift has not even been type-approved, that it is a kind of ‘do-it-yourself lift’. This is a very serious thing, but one that unfortunately sometimes happens, because there are too many people who, with a lack of sensitivity and knowledge of the sector, consider lifts as a ‘household appliance’ rather than a real means of transport.”

Nasca went on to explain: “Italy is the second largest country in the world after China in terms of the number of lifts. We have over a million of them, but half of them are unfortunately obsolete. Since it is recognised, even by two rulings, as a real means of transport, it is regulated by very stringent standards and requires equally strict and serious controls. Unfortunately, however, and here the responsibility must be shared between administrators, maintainers and the users themselves, we do not have the same rigour towards lifts as we have towards other means of transport’. ‘I live with embarrassment what has happened,’ Nasca concludes, ’especially because my sector sometimes ventures onto a playing field that is not mature enough. Where people look more to save money than to do serious work. Even at ministerial level, there is a permanent technical table on transport safety, but within this institution, despite the fact that the lift is a recognised means of transport, no one sits who represents this sector.”