Driver freed after car crashes down elevator shaft

[May 10, 2011]  SEATTLE (AP) -- The Seattle Fire Department says a woman has been safely rescued after her car crashed through Sheetrock in a hospital parking garage and plunged 10 feet down an elevator shaft.

The driver was alone in her car on the third level of a parking garage at Virginia Mason Hospital on Monday afternoon when the crash happened. Fire Lt. Sue Stangl said rescuers made sure the power was out and the elevator turned off before they went down to the fourth level, broke through a wall and pulled her out.

Stangl said the woman is in her 60s and appears to be uninjured.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear.

[Associated Press]

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