3 ms·

The Big City; Aftermath of 40 Hours in an Elevator (1999)

29 points by 1970-01-01 4y ago

spicybright 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20201107114623/https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/28/nyregion/the-big-city-aftermath-of-40-hours-in-an-elevator.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201107114623/https://www.nytim...
beautifulfreak 4y ago
A time lapse video: https://youtu.be/rxconvkLz2I?t=22 https://youtu.be/rxconvkLz2I?t=22
123pie123 4y ago
did he get any money? found the info: "He got a lawyer, and came to believe that returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building’s management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures" https://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/lawyers-making-clients-worse-off-department-nicholas-whites-elevator-ride/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/lawyers-making-clients-...
- kahirsch 4y ago
  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-down https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-do... Undisclosed settlement, probably "low six figures" (between $100,000 and $500,000).
  - playingalong 4y ago
    Isn't low six figures between 1 million and 10 million?
    - jefftk 4y ago
      $XXX,XXX is six figures. Single digit millions ("$X,XXX,XXX") would be seven figures.
      - rationalist 4y ago
        I also wrote an explanation, but after I submitted, I saw three more, all of which beat mine (yours was the first looking at the comment ID), so I deleted it. I personally wish that people would check to see if someone else beat them or wrote a better answer (yours is also a better answer than the other two, but alas this account does not have enough karma to downvote the others), and if so, delete theirs like I did. Oh well.
        mulmen 4y ago
        All three comments were posted within 5 seconds of eachother.
        rationalist 4y ago
        Yes.
    - jaywalk 4y ago
      1 million: 7 figures 10 million: 8 figures
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      No, a million is 7 figures (one followed by 6 zeros)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - mproud 4y ago
      “Hardly six figures” could be interpreted as very low six figures.
kens 4y ago
For more, see this long New Yorker article that includes a lot of elevator history: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-down https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-do... The quick summary is that Mr. White recovered from the elevator mishap, but his $25 million lawsuit took four years and ruined his life. He ended up settling for low six figures, but lost his job and his friends. "Looking back on the experience now, with a peculiarly melancholic kind of bewilderment, he recognizes that he walked onto an elevator one night, with his life in one kind of shape, and emerged from it with his life in another. Still, he now sees that it wasn’t so much the elevator that changed him as his reaction to it. He has come to terms with the trauma of the experience but not with his decision to pursue a lawsuit instead of returning to work. If anything, it prolonged the entrapment. He won’t blame the elevator."
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
setgree 4y ago
The article is pretty lighthearted, but after a day in an elevator, I’d be pretty worried about dying of dehydration. I suppose you’d know that you’d probably be rescued on Monday no matter what, but Friday to Monday is 3 days, which is about as long as a human can go without water. (Admittedly he got trapped late Friday night.)
- mproud 4y ago
  I’m not so sure about that. People have been trapped in rubble and other places without water for up to a week and still survived. Obviously there are other factors to consider, like how recently someone ate or drank, their fitness level, the temperature, etc. but someone could certainly go longer than three days.
  - setgree 4y ago
    So nothing here is ironclad but it looks like some of those trapped folks might have had a bit of water and food [0] > In Turkey, for example, experts say those who were stuck in collapsed residential buildings may have had access to some source of water or food. That article cites "the rule of 4s" which I've always heard this called the "rule of 3s" (3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food), and that's what Wikipedia calls it but who knows. Per a BBC article [1], the longest someone has ever survived without water is 18 days, but a wikipedia article about that person says that he "survived by ingesting condensed water" [2] [0] https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/18/health/turkey-quake-rescues/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/18/health/turkey-quake-rescues/i... [1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201016-why-we-cant-survive-without-water https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201016-why-we-cant-surv... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Mihavecz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Mihavecz
paulpauper 4y ago
Another use for cellphones Technically, it would not be claustrophobia but cleithrophobia. Simialr but not the same.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Your cellphone might very well not work in an elevator as it may form a Faraday Cage, not on purpose, but just because it's a metal box. I guess in our modern world there's more incentive to design new ones not to be Faraday Cages, but I don't know how many old ones would be.
somat 4y ago
Perhaps a stupid question, as most of my knowledge of elevator operation comes from thriller movies, and they will commit any engineering sin as long as it drive the plot forward. but, how would one self escape an elevator? I mean, you wait a few hours, no indication that any one knows you are trapped between floors, can you go through the roof, and manually open the floor above doors?
- kens 4y ago
  The ceiling hatch of an elevator is normally locked from the outside. You may be able to pry the doors open. However, in this case, the elevator was an express elevator and the door opened onto a cinder block wall. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, one group of people were trapped in an elevator, so they pried the door open, only to find drywall. They laboriously chipped a hole through the drywall with keys, reached through and felt tile. Reaching a bit more, they grabbed a paper toilet seat cover! They had made a hole into the restroom; after expanding the hole, they were able to escape. After that, the World Trade Center elevators were modified so they couldn't be opened from the inside, resulting in unnecessary deaths on 9/11.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    Interesting, were can I read about this?
    - kens 4y ago
      I think it was the book "102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers". I'm not 100% sure since I read the book many years ago.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  What I did, when this happened to me 20-ish years ago, was to pry the doors open and shimmy through the gap. It was not easy, and I don't know how well it would work in a newer elevator, but at the time it seemed to be purely a matter of leverage.
- 4y ago

29 points by 1970-01-01 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20201107114623/https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/28/nyregion/the-big-city-aftermath-of-40-hours-in-an-elevator.html https://web.archive.org/web/20201107114623/https://www.nytim...

beautifulfreak 4y ago

A time lapse video: https://youtu.be/rxconvkLz2I?t=22 https://youtu.be/rxconvkLz2I?t=22

123pie123 4y ago

did he get any money? found the info: "He got a lawyer, and came to believe that returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the building’s management and the elevator-maintenance company, took four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number, hardly six figures" https://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/lawyers-making-clients-worse-off-department-nicholas-whites-elevator-ride/ https://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/lawyers-making-clients-...

kahirsch 4y ago
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-down https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-do... Undisclosed settlement, probably "low six figures" (between $100,000 and $500,000).
- playingalong 4y ago
  Isn't low six figures between 1 million and 10 million?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    $XXX,XXX is six figures. Single digit millions ("$X,XXX,XXX") would be seven figures.
    - rationalist 4y ago
      I also wrote an explanation, but after I submitted, I saw three more, all of which beat mine (yours was the first looking at the comment ID), so I deleted it. I personally wish that people would check to see if someone else beat them or wrote a better answer (yours is also a better answer than the other two, but alas this account does not have enough karma to downvote the others), and if so, delete theirs like I did. Oh well.
      - mulmen 4y ago
        All three comments were posted within 5 seconds of eachother.
        rationalist 4y ago
        Yes.
  - jaywalk 4y ago
    1 million: 7 figures 10 million: 8 figures
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    No, a million is 7 figures (one followed by 6 zeros)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - mproud 4y ago
    “Hardly six figures” could be interpreted as very low six figures.

kens 4y ago

For more, see this long New Yorker article that includes a lot of elevator history: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-down https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-do... The quick summary is that Mr. White recovered from the elevator mishap, but his $25 million lawsuit took four years and ruined his life. He ended up settling for low six figures, but lost his job and his friends. "Looking back on the experience now, with a peculiarly melancholic kind of bewilderment, he recognizes that he walked onto an elevator one night, with his life in one kind of shape, and emerged from it with his life in another. Still, he now sees that it wasn’t so much the elevator that changed him as his reaction to it. He has come to terms with the trauma of the experience but not with his decision to pursue a lawsuit instead of returning to work. If anything, it prolonged the entrapment. He won’t blame the elevator."

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

setgree 4y ago

The article is pretty lighthearted, but after a day in an elevator, I’d be pretty worried about dying of dehydration. I suppose you’d know that you’d probably be rescued on Monday no matter what, but Friday to Monday is 3 days, which is about as long as a human can go without water. (Admittedly he got trapped late Friday night.)

mproud 4y ago
I’m not so sure about that. People have been trapped in rubble and other places without water for up to a week and still survived. Obviously there are other factors to consider, like how recently someone ate or drank, their fitness level, the temperature, etc. but someone could certainly go longer than three days.
- setgree 4y ago
  So nothing here is ironclad but it looks like some of those trapped folks might have had a bit of water and food [0] > In Turkey, for example, experts say those who were stuck in collapsed residential buildings may have had access to some source of water or food. That article cites "the rule of 4s" which I've always heard this called the "rule of 3s" (3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food), and that's what Wikipedia calls it but who knows. Per a BBC article [1], the longest someone has ever survived without water is 18 days, but a wikipedia article about that person says that he "survived by ingesting condensed water" [2] [0] https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/18/health/turkey-quake-rescues/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/18/health/turkey-quake-rescues/i... [1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201016-why-we-cant-survive-without-water https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201016-why-we-cant-surv... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Mihavecz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Mihavecz

paulpauper 4y ago

Another use for cellphones Technically, it would not be claustrophobia but cleithrophobia. Simialr but not the same.

tialaramex 4y ago
Your cellphone might very well not work in an elevator as it may form a Faraday Cage, not on purpose, but just because it's a metal box. I guess in our modern world there's more incentive to design new ones not to be Faraday Cages, but I don't know how many old ones would be.

somat 4y ago

Perhaps a stupid question, as most of my knowledge of elevator operation comes from thriller movies, and they will commit any engineering sin as long as it drive the plot forward. but, how would one self escape an elevator? I mean, you wait a few hours, no indication that any one knows you are trapped between floors, can you go through the roof, and manually open the floor above doors?

kens 4y ago
The ceiling hatch of an elevator is normally locked from the outside. You may be able to pry the doors open. However, in this case, the elevator was an express elevator and the door opened onto a cinder block wall. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, one group of people were trapped in an elevator, so they pried the door open, only to find drywall. They laboriously chipped a hole through the drywall with keys, reached through and felt tile. Reaching a bit more, they grabbed a paper toilet seat cover! They had made a hole into the restroom; after expanding the hole, they were able to escape. After that, the World Trade Center elevators were modified so they couldn't be opened from the inside, resulting in unnecessary deaths on 9/11.
- mixmastamyk 4y ago
  Interesting, were can I read about this?
  - kens 4y ago
    I think it was the book "102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers". I'm not 100% sure since I read the book many years ago.
marssaxman 4y ago
What I did, when this happened to me 20-ish years ago, was to pry the doors open and shimmy through the gap. It was not easy, and I don't know how well it would work in a newer elevator, but at the time it seemed to be purely a matter of leverage.
4y ago