Irmo, SC (Paul Kirby) – Four people were frightened but uninjured Tuesday morning after the elevator carriage they were riding in stopped working between floors and then begin to fill with smoke. This happened at a business on Berryhill Road in the St. Andrews portion of Irmo.
According to Battalion Chief Bradley Wells of the Irmo Fire District, the Irmo department was first dispatched to an elevator rescue. While enroute, the call was upgraded to a commercial structure fire when the people trapped in the faulty carriage called back and said it was filling with smoke! Lexington County’s 911 Center dispatched trucks and personnel from both Lexington County and the City of West Columbia to assist. Wells said that once the first personnel arrived, they quickly freed the people from the elevator and began looking for the source of the smoke. All of the other people that were in the building at the time were evacuated as well.
Chief Wells said that firefighters eventually found a burned belt in the equipment room of the elevator. The Irmo crews, assisted by the teams from the other departments, cut power to the elevator and then used fans to remove the smoke from the building. It was eventually turned over to the property’s management team who notified a company to come and repair the equipment.
