FORT WORTH, Texas — John Peter Smith Hospital has fired its elevator maintenance company, Thyssenkrupp, in the fallout over an accident that severely injured a nurse in January.
The hospital has filed a legal notice to terminate its contract with Thyssenkrupp.
The nurse, Carren Stratford, was in a coma for 15 days after the Jan. 20 incident. She was trying to get onto one of the hospital's "purple" elevators when it didn't stop going up, JPS CEO president Robert Earley said. She suffered hypoxic brain damage and had to undergo multiple surgeries.
Thyssenkrupp confirmed that JPS had terminated their contract, effective May 14.
"It’s important to understand that, until recently, both sides had been happy with this relationship since thyssenkrupp took over the service contract in 2014," the company said in a statement. "In 2017, JPS Hospital reiterated its happiness with our service support by extending its contract with us, which is in alignment with its third-party’s positive review of thyssenkrupp’s work."
Both JPS and Thyssenkrupp have traded blame in the weeks following the accident.
Earley, the JPS CEO, has called Thyssenkrupp unresponsive and said, "We are not elevator experts."
"You hire elevator experts, and we thought we had elevator experts," Earley said. "We've got a contract that clearly spells out what elevator companies are supposed to do to help with safety and security of everyone that works here."
But Thyssenkrupp officials said they had warned the hospital before the accident that "untrained" JPS staffers were working on the elevators and "complicating efforts to repair elevators."
"When untrained individuals perform elevator-related activities...that not only puts maintenance personnel in jeopardy, but it also puts the riding public at risk as well," Thyssenkrupp regional president Pete Engwer said in a statement last month.