She fell 75 floors in a broken elevator & survived to tell it!

25 Apr 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:09

The video narrated by Dan Novaes recounts the 1945 incident in which a B-25 bomber, lost in fog, crashed into the Empire State Building on its 79th floor. The impact caused a fire, debris, and a catastrophic failure of an elevator shaft. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver, stationed on the 75th floor, experienced a free‑fall when a cable snapped. Remarkably, broken cables accumulated beneath the car and the air pressure in the shaft slowed its descent, allowing the elevator to hit the bottom with survivable force. Oliver survived with severe injuries, setting the record for the longest survived elevator fall. The narration contrasts her outcome with a nearby elevator that fell under different conditions and did not survive, highlighting the unlikely combination of factors that turned a normally fatal scenario into a survivable one.

Chapters

In 1945, a military plane crashed into a skyscraper and triggered one of the strangest survival stories ever. The building was the Empire State Building. A B-25 bomber, lost in fog, hit the 79th floor. Fire spread quickly. Debris fell through the building. And inside an elevator shaft, a cable snapped. An elevator with a young operator, Betty Lou Oliver, began to fall. Straight down. From the 75th floor. No brakes, no control. Just a free fall. It should have been fatal. But something unexpected happened. As the elevator dropped, broken cables piled beneath beneath it, acting like a cushion. Air pressure in the shaft also slowed the descent. The elevator hit the bottom, and she survived, severely injured, but alive. In fact, she holds the record for the longest survived elevator fall. At the same time, another elevator nearby also fell, but that one didn't have the same conditions. It didn't end the same way. The crash itself killed several people. But this moment stood out. Because in a disaster where everything failed, A falling elevator, one of the most dangerous scenarios imaginable, somehow became survivable. Not because of design, but because of a series of unlikely factors that all happened at the right time.