Trapped in an elevator for 41 hours

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 20:28:47 -0500

On a Friday evening in October 1999 Nicholas White, a production manager, was working late and decided to take a smoke break. Little did he know it would be the longest smoke break of his life.

The magazine’s offices were on the forty-third floor of the McGraw-Hill Building, an unadorned tower added to Rockefeller Center in 1972. When White finished his cigarette, he returned to the lobby and, waved along by a janitor buffing the terrazzo floors, got into Car No. 30 and pressed the button marked 43. The car accelerated. It was an express elevator, with no stops below the thirty-ninth floor, and the building was deserted. But after a moment White felt a jolt. The lights went out and immediately flashed on again. And then the elevator stopped.

White was stranded in the elevator for 41 hours. In that time White tried everything he could do to escape and even imagined his death. Not having any way to tell if it was day or night or even what time it was would drive a person insane.

Up and Then Down - New Yorker article by Nick Paumgarten
Trapped in an elevator for 41 hours - time elapse surveillance video of Nicholas White

BlogCadre - lifts

Trapped in an elevator for 41 hours