Fire Log: Man in Town Hall Elevator Trapped for 35 Minutes

A man in elevator in the newly renovated New Canaan Town Hall got trapped for about 35 minutes when the elevator was stuck Tuesday afternoon.

It was one of the New Canaan Fire Department’s calls last week (see below for more).

The elevator missed one of the floors by a few inches, which set off internal safety devices that kept the door from opening, said Fire Chief Jack Hennessey. A short while later, an elevator repair man could be seen working on the device, which was between the first floor and the floor below.

“We were talking with the gentleman who was in the car, and he was in no distress,” Hennessey said. The fire chief wasn’t sure on Wednesday what had caused the malfunction.

The elevator stopped working one other time since Town Hall reopened when a piece of debris from the renovation got stuck in the elevator track, although that wasn’t a problem with the machinery, the fire chief said.

“There are growing pains in the building,” he said.

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At 9:01 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 5, an electricity wire near 310 Laurel Road was reported smoking after a tree limb fell on it.

When firefighters arrived at the scene, they saw a live wire was on the street. Police and firefighters remained on the scene until power was shut down in the neighborhood, “de-energizing” the wire. Until that point, the area around the wire was unsafe, since electricity can jump (or “arc”) from the wire quite a distance.

How far? Firefighters have a policy of staying as far away as the distance between two utility poles, Hennessey said. (Electricity from a downed wire is more likely to jump on a street wet with rain, the fire chief said. And sometimes the wire will move, he added.)

Firefighters returned to the station at 10:24 a.m.

Other fire calls include:

At 1:47 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 6, a Thrush Lane resident reported the smell of propane gas outdoors. Firefighters sent to the scene couldn’t smell it and didn’t find a source for it.

A malfunctioning fire alarm for a commercial building at 88 Main St. went off at 8:56 p.m. and 10:35 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 8, and again at 3:43 a.m. the next day. The alarm was serviced and didn’t go off again.