A Stag Do in Newquay escaped with minor injuries after a lift plummeted 100 feet from the lobby of their stag friendly hotel to the small cove below.
Six friends on a joint stag do just returned from a clay pigeon shooting trip found themselves in a near death experience when their lift got stuck between the first floor and the ground floor of their hotel. Once they had called for assistance engineers tried to manually ease it back to the lobby. The lift then dropped with the doors open a 100 feet to the small cove below.
Neil McCracken, one of the Grooms from Weybridge, Surrey, said: “Stag dos are supposed to be a bit of an adventure and a crazy time but we weren’t expecting this”.
“We got in the lift but it got stuck and they told us to be patient and tolerant and they’d wind it down and have us out. Then all of a sudden, with the doors still open, the lift suddenly started dropping. It went past one of the floors and just started gaining speed. We could see the wall flashing past. We realised something was pretty wrong and then it just went crash when it hit the bottom. We could see the sea at the end of the lift shaft the tide was coming in. It was pretty scary, we did not know whether we would drown trapped in this lift shaft. We were extremely worried. We were lucky no one was seriously hurt or killed and five of us managed to get to the pub as planned”.
They then had to contend with an incoming tide and feared they may drown as the doors were jammed shut and they could not escape the lift.
Over 80 sea and air rescuers where called out to free the men from the mangled lift. A coastguard agency spokesman said “It’s everyone worst nightmare when they get in a lift. It’s a miracle no-one was seriously hurt or killed.”
Only one of the stag group had to go to hospital with a torn muscle, the rest of the group managed to hit Newquay’s bar and clubs as planned!