PORT KLANG: A senior citizen died after he fell into a lift shaft at Klang Villa Apartments on Monday.
Mohd Din Salahuddin, 64, passed away about 15 minutes after the fall due to severe head and body injuries in the incident which took place at about 4pm.
The incident occurred when Din had walked into the lift shaft without realising that the lift was stuck on an upper floor.
Just moments earlier, the lift had momentarily stalled and its doors opened unexpectedly on the fourth floor.
Some five residents who were in the lift exited the lift and took the stairs down.
Seconds later, Din walked into the lift shaft when the doors opened again, unaware that the lift had gone up to the fifth floor.
Din's son, Mohd Sobri, said he was alerted of the incident by a neighbour who came running to his apartment unit.
"My neighbour screamed 'Sobri! Sobri! Your father fell down the lift shaft'. I immediately ran to the fourth floor and saw my father who was bloodied on the lowest floor. I took the stairs down but had to wait for a few minutes for the apartment's Joint Management Body (JMB) to open the lift door. I was stopped from reaching out for my father as the other residents told me that the ambulance was on its way.
"After 15-minutes of waiting, the ambulance had yet to arrive and afraid that the lift would drop and crush my father who was still alive but unconscious at that time. However, five minutes after pulling him out, he passed away," he said when met at the apartment earlier today.
It was ironic that the five residents who got stuck earlier were on their way down to the JMB office to lodge a complaint on an another lift which had been out of service for a week.
Sobri made a police report at the Pandamaran police station on Monday and said his family was mulling legal action against the relevant parties.
He said many complaints had been made on faulty lifts but no action had been taken.
"We do not want any of our other neighbours to become a victim of negligence. This should not happen again," said Sobri.
Meanwhile, the JMB manager, who wanted to be known only as Arunkumar,33, denied that the lifts at the apartment were not maintained well.
He said appointed contractors had been carrying out maintenance works on the lifts monthly and all were in good condition.
"There has been times when the lifts got stuck or do not function at all, but this is the first time such an incident has taken place," he said.
He added that the JMB had made an application to the 1Malaysia Maintenance Fund programme to replace the existing lifts in January and its request was being processed.