UP restaurant owner dies after neck gets stuck in service lift for 30 mins

Meerut: A 58-year-old restaurant owner in UP lost his life in a freak incident after his neck got trapped into a service lift shaft of his multi-storey eatery and remained perilously stuck for almost 30 minutes till police used iron rods to break it open.

The incident took place in Saharanpur late on Monday.Harsh Khurana, 58, owner of Khatirdari restaurant in the city’s Court Road, was waiting for food supplies to be sent from the upper floor via a small service lift used for transporting kitchen items when the incident happened between midnight and 1 am, police said.Circle officer Manoj Kumar Yadav said, “We’re investigating whether the lift encountered a technical malfunction or there was some other reason.

We’re looking into all possible angles. The postmortem report is awaited.”According to police, eatery staffers on the upper floor usually load food and other materials into the service lift after a phone call from the ground floor to send it to the other floors. On Monday night, when the supplies did not arrive, Khurana leaned into the lift shaft to check. At that very moment, the lift descended, trapping his neck.“I was passing by the restaurant when I saw a lot of chaos. People were searching for the master keys to open the lift.

When they couldn’t find it, they started using motorcycle keys, screwdrivers and other tools. Police were informed and the lift had to be opened with iron rods. An unconscious man -- with wounds around his neck -- was pulled out and rushed to hospital,” said Agam Manchanda, a witness.“Khurana had been running the restaurant for many years and had modified the unit into a larger eatery after purchasing an adjacent shop around six months ago. It’s a three-storey restaurant now,” said Ajay Kumar, a neighbouring shopkeeper at Tilak Nagar Colony.The 58-year-old is survived by his wife, married daughter and son.