New Jersey prison elevator bearing failure

Elevator pulley bearing failed; safety brakes engaged at 1.6 G. Guard transporting three prisoners (one a former NY Giants lineman) was on the floor with a slipped disc when the surveillance camera came back on after 10–15 seconds of obstruction. Court awarded $1.6M because jury could not be told what likely happened during the blackout.

One of them in a prison in New Jersey, they were going down the elevator, and it wasn't the cable that broke — it was one of the bearings in one of the sheaves, the pulleys. The safety brakes operated, and afterwards they simulated the failure: it was 1.6 G's. Ordinarily 1.6 G's shouldn't knock someone to the ground. But the prison guard going down the elevator with three great big guys, one of whom used to be a New York Giants lineman — and these were the prisoners — there was a camera in this prison elevator so the other guards could be watching to make sure no hanky-panky went on, that the guard transporting the prisoners didn't get roughed up. When it stopped, all of a sudden the camera went black because one of the prisoners puts his hand over the camera, and another one basically puts his knee in the back of the guard, takes him to the ground. When it's all done, the guard's got a slipped disc. These prisoners didn't really like the guard very much. Of course they said it was because of the 1.6 G's of deceleration. But even if you fall down you don't usually get a slipped disc. This guy had pretty bad back damage. He ended up getting $1.6 million from the court, because we were not allowed to speculate about what the lineman did to him. He was standing behind him, and all of a sudden the television picture went black, and it was black for about 10 or 15 seconds. When it came back on, the lineman and the guard were on the floor of the elevator, the other two guys were standing there, and this guy was injured. So what do you think happened? But we couldn't convince the jury, because we couldn't tell the jury that story. That's just the way the law works.