Lift crushes baby to death minutes before killing fraught mother as she tried to save him

The mother tried to force open the door and push her son Vladimir’s pram through the gap.

But the pram got wedged in the door, to which the lift suddenly started moving up and down and crushed the child.

Desperate, Mrs Simonova phoned her husband Oleg who was in the family home.

He said: “She called me from the lift, crying and shouting, saying our baby was dead.”

He and a male relative rushed down the stairs from the flat with other neighbours and forced open the door, pulling out the crushed child and the pram.

Oleg said: “My son was squeezed together with his pram, he was hanging there with his head down.

“We thought he might be still alive. We cut the pram and then the lift suddenly began to move up killing my wife too.”

There was only five minutes between their deaths.

He said: “The lift was just going crazily up and down. First it killed our son, and then it killed my wife too.

“I can’t believe that they are both dead now.”

Mrs Simonova and her son were buried in the same coffin in a funeral service in Simferopol in Crimea.

Neighbours had repeatedly claimed that the authorities had failed to repair the ageing lift which often broke.

Mrs Simonova and her baby leave behind 14-year-old daughter and sister Valeria and Mikhail, eight.

Oleg has vowed to sue those responsible.

A criminal investigation is underway by Russian authorities in Crimea.

Oleg said: ”I will sue them. I know who is in charge of these blocks.

“I will sue their bosses, they did nothing to repair the equipment.”

The Russian criminal code allows for a maximum punishment of ten years in jail for causing death by providing unsafe facilities.

Additional reporting by Will Stewart