By Alexia Saoulli
A 26-YEAR-old man was critically injured when he plunged down an elevator shaft at a Nicosia nightclub, police said yesterday.
Early on Sunday morning, Kypros Xenofondos called for the lift at a popular nightclub in the island’s capital. Initial reports said that when the elevator doors opened, he walked through and plunged to the ground because the lift was not there. The Fire Department had to be called to the scene to free the youth and he was rushed to Nicosia general hospital.
However, an inside source told the Cyprus Mail the youth had prised open the elevator doors when the lift failed to stop at the third floor.
“The lift never opened for him because it had gone up to the fourth floor before stopping at the third floor. He decided, for some reason, to open the doors and it seems he fell to the ground. His friend quickly rushed downstairs and informed us that he’d fallen down the shaft,” said the source. “When we called out to him, he said he was OK. After a while, however, he said he felt unwell and that he couldn’t stand. It’s not surprising since he fell four and a half storeys down to the basement.”
The nightclub carries out weekly elevator checks, said the source, and had its last one carried out last Wednesday. “The club cannot operate if we don’t carry out these checks. Experts checked it out today and the elevator company confirmed that the doors do not open on their own, unless the lift is in place.”
Xenofondos is currently being kept in the hospital’s surgical ward. Both his legs were broken, his kidney was ruptured and he suffered internal bleeding. Hospital staff would not comment on his condition.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
