[masraum]

I worked in a building in downtown Houston that was 34 floors. 1-9 was parking. One bank of elevators services floors 10-21, and there was another bank that serviced 22-34. I worked on the 10th floor. While I was working in the building, the bank that I didn't use had IIRC 3 accidents in less than 6 months. The one that I remember the most detail about was that 2 or 3 folks got in on the 27th floor, pushed the button to go down and the elevator went into a free fall. When it got to the 23rd floor, the brakes kicked in and stopped it... immediately. At least one woman that had been standing had the same experience as jumping off of a 4 story building and landing on their feet. She ended up with at least 1 leg with a compound fracture.
article -> http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/heights-news/article/Elevator-falls-have-workers-in-Houston-tower-1744951.php


Yeah, I think we had a bunch of folks walking a lot of stairs for a while.

I didn't work there, but another story from Houston. Some guy got his head stuck between the doors and managed to get decapitated. The worst part is that there were people that got stuck in the elevator with part of him (I think it was the big part).
Snopes confirms it if you don't believe me. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/elevator.asp

One last story. We had some major flooding in downtown houston at some point in the last 10 years or so. Some woman got in the elevator to go to her car in the basement... that was flooded. Yeah, the idea of this one creeps me out a bit. You guess it, she ended up in the elevator submerged in the flooded parking garage and drowned.
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2001_3326466/lawsuit-filed-in-flood-drowning-woman-s-death-insi.html