The Bloody Elevator

This is one of the more gruesome stories I learned about on the Gatlinburg Ghost Walk.   It is a story of the foolishness of human behavior.  According to our ghostly guide, not so long ago there was some construction work on the Space Needle in Gatlinburg.  Two workers were hired to do some basic, simple work.  They were required to go to the top of the needle.  These two workers weren't the brightest bulbs in the box, but they got the job done.  As workers, they were told to go down the stairs and leave the elevator for tourists.   One of the workers was tired and really didn't want to take the stairs.  He came up with a brilliant plan.   He figured they could just jump on the top of the elevator as it went down the shaft and ride down the elevator in secret.  His friend didn't think this was a great plan, but the worker wasn't someone who could easily change his mind. So as the elevator began its descent, he made a jump down the shaft onto the top of the elevator.   Of course, this didn't work out as planned.

The man fell hard on the top of the elevator and got his leg caught in the gears.  The gears slowly drug the screaming worker into them, crunching bone and slowly killing the screaming dare devil.  It wasn't a pleasant death.  As the man above them slowly died, the tourists in the elevator below heard his shrieks of agony.   Since it was a glass elevator, they also began to see blood dripping down the side of the elevator.  As the elevator ground the body of the man above, the blood pooled on the top of the elevator and began to drip through the ceiling onto the tourists trapped inside.   The elevator finally stopped and the tourists were left trapped in an elevator that was slowly filling with more and more blood.  The worker had died, but the tourists' ordeal was just beginning.  It took three hours to save them from the bloody elevator and every passenger trapped in the elevator would go on to need counseling.

According to legend,  the elevator on the Space Needle has been haunted ever since then.   Periodically the elevator will stop and passengers will hear phantom screams and see blood dripping down the glass.