Distraught elevator prisoner becomes belated YouTube star

by Stevie Smith - Apr 22 2008, 15:12

A man trapped for 41 hours inside an elevator back in 1999 has found himself the unwitting subject of a rush of online interest after surveillance footage showcasing his ordeal was posted on the Internet via Google Inc.’s hugely popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.

YouTube grants long-awaited fame to trapped elevator victim. Credit: IBuriedPaul/Flickr.

The video clip in question, a time-lapse snapshot of the man’s rather abrupt slice of solitary confinement, has already received in excess of 650,000 viewings since its arrival on YouTube -- with emergent media coverage only likely to further fuel its rush of popularity.“After a certain period of time I knew that I was in pretty big trouble because it was the weekend,” explained elevator prisoner Nicholas White earlier this week on ABC TV’s Good Morning America show. The star of the clip has also acknowledged its rising popularity insofar as many people have likely wondered what they might do should such a desperate incident befall them.
Having received close to 1,400 user comments since being posted to YouTube as an accompaniment to an April 21 article in The New Yorker, Mr. White’s claustrophobic trauma in New York City’s McGraw-Hill building duly plays out in a musically-enhanced edit that conveys all 41 hours in a bite-size tribute clip.The clip shows Mr. White prying open the elevator doors, lying down, curling up into a foetal position, and attempting to clamber up the elevator’s walls during his time held alone within the enclosed space.Mr. White, an employee of Business Week magazine at that time, was working late in the office on October 15 of 1999 when he became trapped in the elevator while returning from a cigarette break. Once finally freed, he subsequently sued the McGraw-Hill building and the elevator maintenance company and received an undisclosed settlement.It has never been determined exactly why the elevator froze, although rumours persist of a related electrical fault.