Woman Crushed To Death In Elevator Accident

A woman was killed in a horrific elevator accident in a Manhattan building Wednesday morning. The 41-year-old victim had just gotten into the lift about 10 a.m. when the elevator suddenly started ascending before the doors were completely closed. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.


The doomed woman was pinned between the elevator and shaft wall as the lift dragged her up two floors, the sources said.

The two other people inside the elevator looked on in horror.

Then suddenly, the elevator fell back down to the ground floor — taking the doomed woman and two other people with it, the sources said.

The woman, whose name was not immediately released, was dead by the time paramedics arrived, sources said.

The two survivors were taken to New York University Hospital, where they were treated for trauma.

The building at 285 Madison Ave. is home to Young and Rubicam and several other advertizing agencies. It was immediately evacuated, and workers

were crying as they came outside.

Art director Lee Tripe said he was riding in another elevator when the accident occurred.

“I was going up in the elevator. I heard a loud crash, then I heard the alarm,” Tripe said. “Someone was pressing the alarm. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

There are two banks of elevators in the building. One set goes up to the 12th floor, the other skips the lower floors but goes up to the 23rd floor.

It was unclear on which side the accident happened.

Records show 56 violations of the building code involving some of the building’s 13 elevators, dating back to 2001. The last citation occurred in 2009, and all of the complaints are listed as resolved by the city Buildings Department.

DN