Hotel lift 'felt like it was hanging on a thread' 

Man tells High Court of elevator crashing three floors to the basement in Killarney Plaza Hotel

The Killarney Plaza Hotel where the lift incident happened in 2011. File picture: Eamonn Keogh

A man who was in a hotel lift which plummeted three floors to the ground has told the High Court that in the seconds before it went into free fall, the lift swayed, and it felt like it was hanging on a thread.

Kevin Meehan ended up with multiple fractures to the spine and was in a wheelchair for three months after the incident, when the lift at the Killarney Plaza Hotel dropped three floors, crashing into the basement-level car park 10 years ago.

“There was an extremely loud bang and the lift dropped a foot," Mr Meehan told Mr Justice Michael Hanna.
"It swayed from side to side and it felt like it was hanging on a thread. There was another huge, loud bang and it started to freefall." Mr Meehan added: 

I saw the horror in my wife’s face. The next moment, we were thown to the ground with huge force. There was dust, smoke, and glass everywhere. It was like a bomb going off.

He said there was no phone signal in the underground car park where the lift had landed, and the emergency phone in the lift and the alarm had disconnected.

“We were banging and screaming and shouting at the top of our lungs for help,” Mr Meehan said.

After two porters found them, he said the emergency services were called.

Mr Meehan had to be lifted out of the wreckage of the lift at the Killarney Plaza Hotel and was put on a hotel laundry trolley because the ambulance could not get to the lift where it had crashed in the basement.

The 43-year-old is one of five from the same extended family, including his wife Jennie Wong, who have sued over the incident as they tried to return to their rooms in the Killarney Plaza Hotel after a wedding ceremony on July 9, 2011.

Mr Meehan’s brother Andrew and his sister-in-law Patricia O’Leary, from Meath, this week settled on confidential terms their High Court actions as a result of the lift incident.

Kevin Meehan, from Celbridge, Co Kildare, has sued the hotel owners, Shawcove Ltd, with registered offices at Castleisland, Co Kerry, and companies involved in installing and maintaining lifts: Ellickson Engineering Ltd, in receivership, of Kilmurry, Waterford; Kilell Ltd, also of Kilmurry, Waterford, and Otis Ltd, Naas Rd Business Park, Dublin, and Otis Elevator Ireland Ltd of the same address, as well as lift components manufacturer Daldoss Elevetronic Spa of Valsugana, Italy.

It is claimed there was a failure to ensure the intended pathway from the car park was safe and free from hazard. And there was a failure, it is claimed, to install a proper functioning lift from the car park to the hotel.

The court previously heard liability was conceded in the case in 2019 and the cases are before the court for assessment of damages only.

Paul Meehan's case and Ms Wong’s case will be heard by the court next week.

In 2017, engineering company Ellickson Engineering Ltd, now in receivership, was fined €750,000 after it was found guilty at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court of a single breach of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act over the installation of the hotel lift in and around April 2004.

Opening the case, Barney Quirke said Kevin Meehan, who was aged 33 at the time, suffered significant injuries including multiple spinal fractures as well as injuries to his knees and ankles.  Counsel said Mr Meehan was in the most extraordinary pain. 

It is their case he also suffered post-traumatic stress after the incident.

The case before Mr Justice Michael Hanna continues next week.