EXCLUSIVE: Partially Blind, Elderly Woman Falls Down Elevator Shaft in Ditmas Park

November 28, 2018 Todd Maisel Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Firefighters and police remove Josephine Camtor, 66, partially blind, after she fell down the elevator shaft of her building at 615 Ocean Ave. in Ditmas Park this afternoon at about 4 p.m. Eagle photo by Todd Maisel

Share this:

A 66-year-old partially blind woman fell into an open elevator shaft in her Ocean Avenue building late Wednesday afternoon.

Josephine Camtor, a resident of 615 Ocean Ave. for about a year, was entering the first-floor elevator, but didn’t realize that the elevator wasn’t there. She stepped inside the shaft and crashed down into the basement. According to her family, Camtor is completely blind in one eye.

Firefighters and police rushed to the scene, where they found Camtor lying in the elevator shaft in pain, fire officials said. Rescuers were able to remove her from the basement level and take her to an ambulance. She was rushed to Kings County Hospital with multiple injuries but was expected to survive.

Her granddaughter Daisy Torres, 15, said the elevator has been frequently out of order, but she has never seen the door open to an empty shaft.

Camtor and Torres share the sixth-floor apartment with Torres’ mother and five other children.

“I’m just worried about my grandmother,” Torres said.

Louis Garcia, a resident of the first floor, said he saw the firefighters rush into the building.

“The elevator wasn’t there when they opened the door. The elevator has been a problem and had been shut. It’s always not working, but not like this,” Garcia said.

According to records from the Department of Buildings, complaints about the elevator in the building date back to 2005. In 2018 alone, six complaints were filed about a faulty elevator, all of which have been marked “resolved” by the department.

Fire officials said the cause of the incident was under investigation and the Department of Buildings would be called to the scene.