Doc Punch Elevator Door

Doc paid no attention. He ran across the corridor to the elevator doors. So quickly that he seemed to spring directly to it he found the cage shaft that was in operation. His fist came back, jumped forward so swiftly as to defy the eye.

The sound as Doc's knuckles hit the sheet-steel elevator door was like the boom of a hard-swung sledge. An onlooker would have sworn the blow would shatter every bone in his fist. But Doc had learned how to tighten the muscles and tendons in his hands until they were like cushioned steel, capable of withstanding the most violent shock.

As a matter of fact, it was part of Doc's daily two-hour routine of exercises to subject all parts of his great body to terrific blows in order that he might be able always to steel himself against them.

The sheet-metal elevator door caved in like a kicked tin can. In a moment Doc had thrown the safety switch which the door, closing, ordinarily operated. Such safety switches are a part of all elevator doors, so the cage cannot move up or down and leave a door open for some child or careless person to fall through into the shaft. They controlled the motor current.

Many floors below, the elevator car halted, motor circuit broken.

- The Man of Bronze (1933) Chapter 6