A woman stuck for three days and nights in the private elevator of a Manhattan townhouse owned by a billionaire investment banker was rescued, police said.
The 53-year-old woman, who worked for the family of the banker as a housekeeping employee, was dehydrated but in stable condition at Weill Cornell Medical Center, they said..
Authorities responded to a 911 call at about 10 a.m. Monday from the home on East 65th Street, near Central Park. Firefighters freed the woman after forcing entry into the elevator that had stalled between the second and third floors of the five-story property.
The woman, Marites Fortaliza, of Queens, told authorities she’d been trapped since Friday while the owners were away for the weekend.
The 911 call came from inside the home but authorities did not say who made it.
The stately 1920 townhouse with a garden was purchased for $8 million in 1999 by Warren A. Stephens and his wife, Harriet Stephens. He did not immediately respond to a message left with Stephens Inc., his investment bank based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Warren Stephens, 61, the bank’s chairman, president and CEO, is estimated to be worth $2.6 billion on Forbes’ list of the world’s top billionaires. The firm, started by Stephens’ uncle, underwrote Wal-Mart’s public offering in 1970, and backed the bonds for the Louisiana Superdome. The Stephens family occasionally kept company with Bill and Hillary Clinton in Little Rock.
The cause of the elevator mishap is under investigation. No violations were found during the last inspection in July, according to city Department of Buildings records. Authorities did not know whether the elevator had an emergency button, or whether the woman had a cellphone.
Police do not suspect any foul play, but reported incidents of being stuck in an elevator for so many days are rare in New York City.
In 2005, a Chinese restaurant worker was trapped in a Bronx elevator for about 80 hours. And in 1999, a man spent 40 hours in a Manhattan office building elevator before he was seen on a security camera.
(AP)
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4 Responses
elevator must have a call button and no one used the elevator for 3 days? unless its a private building?
Yes it was a private elevator as told. But who needs all these details about the owner,’s financial status?
I gotta tell you, I tested the emergency button many times over 5 years in my young married daughters old decrepit slum apartment building in the ghetto hood of Williamsburg Brooklyn New york….NEVER WORKED ONCE!!
So i repeatedly called the city, made a complaint/report, and they reassured me they would follow up with an email to me, confirming when that had been fixed.
I never got an email. WHat am i gonna do? Keep calling for nothing? And by the way, this is all despite the Inspection record hanging on the inside of the elevator had been signed every 3 months routinely that all was in working order.
I am from Canada, and must tell you, that the general atmosphere of NYC is like the wild west. Its a no mans land dog eat dog. Its like nobody cares. I think that’s the price they paid for breaking sovereign free from the Crown of Britan. There is like no leaders.
Since when are Canadians experts on NYC?