On Sunday May 25th at approximately 10:00pm Hudson Firefighters were dispatched to a stuck occupied elevator between the fifth and sixth floors of Bliss Towers. Upon arrival firefighters found the elevator occupied by eight children and one adult.

Hudson Firefighters brought in special elevator keys to open the main elevator door; however the locking mechanism was not releasing properly delaying the rescue. While attempting to access the elevator reports from inside the elevator claimed two of the youths had began showing symptoms of minor medical emergencies.

Firefighters with specialized elevator rescue training made access to a parallel elevator shaft and began to set up an extrication plan thru the emergency access hatch at the top of the stuck elevator half a floor above. Additional crews continued to work on freeing the main elevator door.

The firefighters were able to access the trapped victims thru the emergency hatch after crossing the parallel elevator shaft. The two youths in need of medical attention were brought out thru the emergency hatch and lowered back down the shaft to an adjacent elevator and thru that emergency hatch to rescuers and EMS personal. Simultaneously the other crew was able to free and slide open the main elevator door by making cuts to the safety locking mechanism of the door using a K12 saw. This allowed the remaining victims to be rescued and lowered to the fifth floor without harm.

Assistant Fire Chief James Schermerhorn was in command.

All Fire Units were back in service shortly after 11pm.