Deputy Critically Injured in Elevator Crash

A Philadelphia Sheriff's sergeant was critically injured after an elevator malfunction at the city's Criminal Justice Center Thursday morning.

Sgt. Paul Owens was in a staff elevator on his way to collect a jury around 10 a.m. inside the building at 13th and Filbert streets in Center City when an elevator mechanism broke, sending the car upward into the ceiling of the building's penthouse and into the elevator machine room, according to WCAU-TV.

Sheriff Jewell Williams told the news station that the 48-year-old law enforcement officer -- a 20-year veteran of the force -- was thrown through the car "like a projectile."

The impact caused Owens to break several bones in his back and was transported to Hahnemann University Hospital where he underwent surgery. A sheriff's spokeswoman said the went well and that he was put in a medically-induced coma and is expected to be under heavy sedation for the next few days.

"He's in a lot of pain. His family is there with him, his mother and his wife who is a former deputy also," Williams said.

A woman in an elevator the basement of the building also was transported at to the hospital after debris from the elevator that Owens was traveling in crashed onto the roof of her car.