Elevator Decapitates Man Holding Door
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NEW YORK — A man was decapitated Friday while he was trying to hold an elevator door open for other passengers and his body fell down the elevator shaft, police said.
“He was holding the elevator open with his back against the door when it went up and caught his head, decapitating him,” police detective Ralph St. Just said. “He was helping one of the passengers out.”
He said the body of James Chenault, 55, fell down the elevator shaft and his head remained inside the elevator after the accident in a building in The Bronx that houses offices of the New York City Human Resources Administration. Chenault worked for the HRA and had been a city employee for 20 years.
Police said four women were in the elevator at the time with Chenault and two of them were taken to the hospital and treated for trauma.
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