Elderly couple dies while trapped in home elevator
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – When the elevator in their home got stuck between floors, Sherwood and Caroline Wadsworth found themselves trapped with no way to call for help as temperatures rose into the 90s in the closet-sized lift until they finally died from heat exhaustion.
Autopsies on the elderly couple — he was 90, she was 89 — on Thursday pointed to a tragic end to lives they shared for more than 60 years. Police estimated they had been dead at least four days before a newspaper carrier called 911 out of concern that papers had piled up by their garage.
Police had to break into the house because the doors were locked and bolted. Inside they found no one but the Wadsworths’ cat. Then they noticed the elevator — accessed by what looked like closet doors with up-and-down arrow buttons in the walls. Once the shaft was open, they found the elevator stuck between the home’s second and third floor.
Police discovered the Wadsworths’ bodies lying in a fetal position, facing each other, Glynn County coroner Jimmy Durden said Thursday. Autopsies concluded both died from heat exhaustion. Durden estimated temperatures in the elevator reached 95 degrees.
