Chef’s falling lift ordeal

By Sarah Schwager
A DRAMATIC freefall in the lift of a city hotel has left a Cranbourne chef traumatised.
Glenn Rochester said he feared for his life when the staff service elevator in the Sofitel Hotel plummeted to the ground.
Mr Rochester said he was thrown around the lift as it plunged about 15 storeys, stopping just a floor and a half from the bottom.
“I thought I was going to die. I had September 11 and terrorist attacks running through my head,” he said.
Mr Rochester was working at the Sofitel on a two-week contract through his agency when the lift fell on 5 June.
He was trapped for an hour and a half before helping emergency services workers to pry the doors open.
But he said he would not work at the Collins Place hotel again, nor any other hotel which had a restaurant on the 35th floor.
“I’m not getting on an elevator again unless I absolutely have to,” he said.
Mr Rochester’s uncle, an elevator mechanic, died in an accident in 1985.
The lift he had been working on top of moved upwards, crushing him against the shaft’s ceiling.
Mr Rochester said his mother was very traumatised after hearing of her son’s similar experience and made him vow he would not get on another lift.
Mr Rochester returned to work at a Cranbourne restaurant this week even though he has not recovered from the incident.
“I can’t twist my back and I can’t lift anything. I have to see a physiotherapist and I’m in counselling,” he said.
“I just hope I haven’t got permanent back injuries. In the last week and a half it hasn’t got any better.”
WorkSafe is currently investigating the incident but Mr Rochester said he had not heard anything about how the incident had happened.
“I would just like to be told what happened,” he said.
The story broke on Jon Faine’s program on 774 ABC last week when Mr Rochester rang the show during a segment with a guest lawyer.
Mr Rochester said the lawyer had found out that the elevator cables had severed, causing a six-tonne counterweight to crash to the floor.
“When I pressed the button to go up I heard a couple of things fall down the elevator shaft,” Mr Rochester said.
“Then when the door opened to get on, pieces of plastic fell to the floor in front of me.”
A Sofitel Hotel spokeswoman said the lift would be out of service until the investigation was completed.
She said AMP Capital Investors, which manages Collins Place, was looking into the incident along with WorkSafe.
“Obviously, safety is a primary concern of the hotel. But until there is a full investigation we cannot comment any further,” she said.