How to Drown in an Elevator
Two construction workers renovating a hotel on Staten Island got on the elevator yesterday morning. The door, they found, was stuck. The men began pressing buttons for every floor, trying to find one that would work. Eventually, they ended up in the basement. From the NYT:
On another day, that would probably have been fine, but the rainfall on Sunday had led to severe flooding in the basement. And when the elevator neared the basement level, "it hit water and started sinking slowly, until it sank to the bottom of the shaft," Captain Melvin said.
The men then found themselves in the preposterous (and precarious) position of facing death by drowning while in an elevator. They called the fire department from a cell phone. Firemen located them an hour later, at which point the workers were standing on top of a cart, in the elevator car, with water up to their necks.
They survived, and missed their chance at immortality.
