George Thorne

Director of Engineering
Start Date: 1969

A LESSON LEARNED

My first day on the job was almost my last! I was following around one of the other guys to learn the ropes, but in the afternoon, he had to go to a meeting. At about the same time, someone reported that they had dropped set of keys down one of the elevator shafts, and I was told to take care of it. Well, I opened the door to the elevator and got the set of keys, and thought I'd done a good job. Then the chief engineer called me into his office. I found out that when I had opened the door to go into the elevator shaft it had a safety switch that instantly shut the elevator down. This elevator was carrying blood to the OR, and they needed it immediately. That's one thing I never did again!