“It’s hard to relive it. It’s hard to put into words how scared we were,” mother Loni Garatziotis says.
The family of a young girl whose arm was sucked into an elevator door has filed a lawsuit against the elevator company.
Three mothers and their children were in an elevator when 5-year-old Zoe had her hand on the elevator door. When the doors opened, the girl’s hand and arm went with it.
Surveillance video from last July shows Zoe’s mother, Loni Garatziotis, and one of the other women grab the door as another woman pulled on the girl, but Zoe’s arm could not be dislodged.
“We just weren’t strong enough. The elevator kept pulling against us,” Garatziotis tells Inside Edition.
“I was super scared,” Zoe tells Inside Edition.
After three minutes passed, the women used hand lotion over Zoe’s arm and pulled on the girl until she was freed.
Zoe was rushed to the hospital after the incident at a building in Hoboken, New Jersey. The young girl had 20 stitches in what a police report calls a “severe laceration.”
Garatziotis’ lawyer, Edward Capozzi, tells Inside Edition an elevator with the correct door gap would not be able to fit a little girl’s hand.
“It’s hard to relive it. It’s hard to put into words how scared we were,” Garatziotis says.
The elevator company says it regrets hearing about the incident but can not comment on pending litigation.
