Deliveryman stuck in elevator for DAYS...

[Arex]

File this one under "WTF?!"

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/05/trapped.delivery.ap/index.html



Deliveryman stuck in elevator for days

New York man rescued Tuesday after disappearing Friday

Tuesday, April 5, 2005 Posted: 10:44 PM EDT (0244 GMT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- A deliveryman who vanished after taking Chinese food to a Bronx high-rise apartment building was found alive Tuesday after apparently spending more than three days trapped in an elevator that had become stuck between floors.

Ming Kuang Chen, 35, had been the subject of a widespread search after he failed to return to his restaurant Friday night with $200 in receipts, prompting speculation that he was the victim of armed bandits or some other urban horror.

But the disappearing deliveryman emerged Tuesday with a mean thirst and a tale of survival. He was pulled out at about 5 a.m. Tuesday by firefighters responding to an emergency call at the high-rise.

"Thanks for everyone caring about me," Chen said afterward in an interview with ETTV, a Taiwan-based news network. "I'm fine now."

Chen had no food or water throughout his ordeal. He was given water at the scene before being taken to Montefiore Medical Center, where he was treated for minor dehydration and ate an apple, cereal and a roll. "He was in very good condition," said hospital spokesman Steve Osborne.

Authorities were questioning why police officers and the building's private security force found no sign of Chen, who claimed he had repeatedly cried out and pushed an alarm button in the elevator. And authorities had conducted a door-to-door canvass of the apartment complex over the weekend in search of Chen.

"I tried to knock [down] the door and kept screaming for help, but no response," Chen said in the television interview. "During the time I was stuck in the elevator, I just kept sleeping because I don't know what else to do."

Chen was last seen about 8:30 p.m. Friday after making three deliveries at the same apartment complex. He later told police through a translator that he had entered an elevator on the 32nd floor of a 38-story building when it plunged down and became stuck between the third and fourth floors.

Chen, a native of China who speaks little English, apparently tried to tell rescuers how long he had been trapped by circling his watch dial with his finger numerous times, said Fire Department spokesman Charlie Markey.

An investigation determined that the security camera and alarm system in the elevator were working. But security officers told police they never heard nor saw Chen until Tuesday. Authorities showed up at the building Tuesday after firefighters got a call that an elevator was stuck.

Even maintenance workers who were called to check out the disabled elevator on Monday missed Chen, police said.

Those questions aside, Mayor Michael Bloomberg marveled at Chen's good luck.

"If they were there and they searched and they didn't find him, thank God it turned out that he's OK," the mayor said. "I think we should all be thankful that the man's alive."

[Banana]

Dude, I'd raise hell if I was stuck in there for 20 minutes.

No one in that department building would go to sleep if I was in there.

[SunWuKong]

i guess the building maintenance is kind of shitty if they didn't even know the elevator had been out for days.

but shit, he must have given his family members quite a scare, what with the attacks on Chinese deliverymen going on in NYC.

[deez nuts]

those brave nyc chinese food delivery guys. now not only do they have to risk life and limb from savages trying to rob them; they now have to contend with faulty elevators.

[nonamerasian]

Dude, I'd raise hell if I was stuck in there for 20 minutes.

No one in that department building would go to sleep if I was in there.

A waste of time in some buildings.

In the building we lived in, people would scream, bang, ring the bell and nothing would happen.

[Banana]

And why was that?

[sinisterpanda]

Too bad he didn't have the food he was delivering. I'm really happy he was just stuck in an elevator and not anything worse.

[nonamerasian]

And why was that?

Who knows.

[golden_buns]

those brave nyc chinese food delivery guys. now not only do they have to risk life and limb from savages trying to rob them; they now have to contend with faulty elevators.
LOL

SNIFF...!!
We should lobby to make it a national day

[tvbdude]

I thought I heard the news people say he ate the deliveries

[Irezumi Kiss]

Those questions aside, Mayor Michael Bloomberg marveled at Chen's good luck.

"If they were there and they searched and they didn't find him, thank God it turned out that he's OK," the mayor said. "I think we should all be thankful that the man's alive."
Sheeeeit...after alla THAT, fuck just being thankful! Bloomberg, I think you OWE him something more than your thanks!

[Banana]

I thought I heard the news people say he ate the deliveries

That's just the media making shit up again. He was actually finishing up an order.

[lethal]

Now he faces deportation according to an email I received.

This week, CM Liu criticized the NYPD for leaking Ming Kuang
Chen's immigration status in violation of Mayor Bloomberg's
Executive Order 41, which prohibits the release of our private
information by City employees. Ming Kuang Chen, a restaurant
delivery worker, was recently rescued from an elevator where he
was trapped for over three days--and now faces possible deportation.

For your information, I have attached excerpts of recent news
reports regarding this issue below.



---
CBS NEWS: "Trapped Deliveryman Now Facing Deportation"
<http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstoriesny_story_098164458.html>
[excerpt]:
Now Councilman John Liu says Chen is worried about deportation.
During the search, it was revealed he had entered the country
illegally from China. "As far as his U.S. status, Ming does not
have the right papers," says Liu. Councilman Liu says Chen has
not heard anything from immigration officials.

According to the Councilman Chen still needs to recover mentally
and physically although he was given a clean bill of health.
At the same time, his first priority is making sure he can
provide for his family back in China.


NEW YORK POST: "ELEVATOR MAN: THANKS FOR DELIVERING ME FROM HELL"
<http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/44187.htm>
[excerpt]:
"Many of us, including myself, feared the worst after not being
able to find this man. But, fortunately, it had a happy ending,"
Councilman John Liu said. Liu urged immigration officials not to
move to deport Chen, as he is a hardworking "New Yorker," despite
his illegal status.


NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: "News test finds calls for help useless in elevator"
<http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/297512p-254700c.html>
[excerpt]:
After Chen went missing, cops searched the twin high-rises on W.
Mosholu Parkway. But they never physically checked the elevator Chin
was freed from early Tuesday.

Still, some police sources have suggested Chen was in the car,
suspended between the third and fourth floors, for only a portion of
the 80 hours. Others wondered if the 32-year-old immigrant was
abducted by smugglers he paid $60,000 to sneak him into the country.

City Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) said he has no doubts about Chen's
account, saying he's "100% credible. Anyone who would cast doubt on
whether he was stuck is either nuts or trying to cover something up."


NEW YORK TIMES: "With One Stuck in an Elevator, a Search Sweeps Up 3 Others"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/nyregion/07delivery.html>
As for Mr. Chen, who spoke with reporters after his rescue on Tuesday,
he was out of the public eye on Wednesday. He was convalescing at a
friend's home, said City Councilman John C. Liu. Mr. Chen is an
illegal immigrant, a fact that his family shared with the police and
that was publicized during the manhunt.

"Is he worried? Yes. He's very worried. He has a family to support,"
Councilman Liu said yesterday, criticizing the police for effectively
notifying immigration officials of Mr. Chen's illegal status.


NEW YORK NEWSDAY: "Mayor criticizes deliveryman flap"
<http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-deli0407,0,3462025.story?coll=nyc-manheadlines-manhattan>
[excerpt]:
After Chen was released from a hospital, where he was treated for
dehydration Tuesday, City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) issued a
statement praising police but criticizing the disclosure of his alien
status. Liu termed it "a serious violation" of Bloomberg's
Executive Order 41.

"Police sources had inappropriately made public some personal
information about Ming, inadvertently putting him in jeopardy with
Federal authorities," Liu said. "The larger concern here is the
dampening effect this will have on motivating immigrant New Yorkers
to seek assistance from and cooperate with the police."

Liu said he was perplexed by the mayor's distancing himself
from the leak. "It's not even a gray area," Liu said. "It's
clearly a violation of his executive order. Someone who works
with the mayor violated his order. So it's incumbent on the
mayor to stress his commitment to this executive order."


NEW YORK TIMES: "The Invisible Deliveryman"
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/nyregion/07matters.html>
[excerpt]:
THERE is something eerily symbolic about one aspect of Ming Kuang
Chen's ordeal. Throughout the more than three days the restaurant
deliveryman spent trapped in a broken Bronx elevator, a security
camera was operating in that elevator car. The camera and a small
building monitor continued to work even when the elevator's power
was turned off after someone reported a service problem. But
nobody reported ever seeing Mr. Chen on that monitor.

He had been working for the Happy Dragon restaurant in the Bronx.
Councilman John C. Liu, Democrat of Queens, said that Mr. Chen
delivered food six days a week, 12 hours a day, for what was at most
$300 a week. The money helps support his wife and 12-year-old son,
still in the Fuzhou region of Fujian Province in China.

Mr. Chen may not be doing that any longer, though. Which brings us to
those often conflicting policies.

The city has long protected the confidentiality of illegal immigrants,
to encourage them to seek out medical, police and other basic city
services. The latest update - a 2003 mayoral executive order -
prohibits city workers in most cases from giving out information about
someone's immigration status (as well as information about sexual
orientation, income tax returns and other private matters). The order
applies to law enforcement officers, except in cases of suspected
criminal or terrorist activity.

BUT several newspapers, including The Times, reported Mr. Chen's
illegal immigration status, citing unnamed police sources. Without
directly answering the sourcing question, Mr. Browne, the police
spokesman, drew a distinction between dealing with aggressive
reporters on a breaking news story, and notifying federal authorities.
"The immigration status of crime victims, witnesses or anyone seeking
police assistance is not shared, period," he said in a statement.

It does seem unlikely that immigration officials would go after Mr.
Chen. But Councilman Liu said that the restaurant worker, mending from
his ordeal, is nervous. "He's worried about it; I'm worried about it,"
Mr. Liu said. "He knows he has to make some big decisions."

His meaning was clear. Mr. Chen, who was not to be found yesterday,
may have to make himself invisible again.


NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: "Delivering food, facing dangers"
<http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/298270p-255421c.html>
[excerpt]:
But in the past in New York, other food delivery workers,
especially those working for Chinese restaurants, have not
been so lucky. According to the Restaurant Opportunities Center
of New York (ROC-NY), an immigrant workers' group that organizes
and supports restaurant workers in the city, Chen's ordeal is
only the tip of an iceberg of extraordinary hazards restaurant
delivery workers face.

"At least one immigrant restaurant delivery worker has been
brutally killed on the job every year since 2000," a ROC-NY
press release said. And it adds: "ROC-NY condemns the serious
occupational safety and health hazards immigrant restaurant
delivery workers face, both the extreme hardship of being stuck
in an elevator for several days without recourse, and the extreme
violence of being beaten to death with a baseball bat, as had
occurred to another Chinese delivery worker in 2001."

Actually, a particularly brutal murder took place more recently.
On Feb. 13, 2004, an 18-year-old boy, Huang Chen, was killed
while delivering a $10 order to an apartment in Rochdale Village
in southeast Queens.

Chen's murder was the sixth high-profile assault of a Chinese
food worker in the past five years.

"It's like killing a dog," said Councilman John Liu
(D-Flushing). "The notion that an Asian person is not human
is what permits two or three 16-year-olds to commit a crime
of such brutality."

The killers were three teenagers - two 16-year-olds and one
18-year-old - who lured Chen to an apartment complex across
the street from the Chen family's takeout business on Guy
Brewer Blvd. in South Jamaica.

They ambushed him, beat him with a baseball bat and hammer
and stabbed him in the lung before dumping his body in a nearby
pond. When his body was found, Chen's face was almost
unrecognizable. The motive: The murderers wanted money to
buy sneakers.

The vicious crime provoked an outcry in the city's Chinese
community, which demanded swift and decisive action by
authorities to stop the attacks on Chinese food delivery workers.

The police responded by quickly apprehending Chen's
attackers, allowing the community a sigh of relief.

"This is the only way to send a strong message that our system
of justice works to fully protect all people," Liu said.

Fortunately, in this particularly vicious case, the message was
loud and clear.

[Irezumi Kiss]

Mr. Chen delivered food six days a week, 12 hours a day, for what was at most $300 a week.
Sometimes I re-realize that as shitty as I'd like to think they are at certain times, my job and personal life ain't bad at all...