Trapped in an Elevator for 40 Hours--What a Scream!

A magazine employee got trapped in the elevator at his high-rise office over the weekend and screamed, banged on the walls and tried climbing out through the ceiling before someone finally noticed him on a video monitor--40 hours after he got stuck.

Nicholas White, a production manager for Business Week, emerged Sunday afternoon from the elevator at his 51-story building at Rockefeller Center. He refused medical attention but took two days off from work.

“I’m still a little shaky,” he said Tuesday.

Sandy Manley, a spokeswoman for Rockefeller Center Management Corp., said officials are trying to determine who should have been monitoring the building’s security cameras.

“That’s the heart of the matter,” Manley said. “We have 24-hour security in this building.”

She would not say whether the elevator cameras run constantly.

White was working late Friday night to finish a project when he left his 43rd-floor office for a cigarette break. A split-second voltage dip caused the elevator to stall just above the 13th floor. White yelled, pounded on the elevator’s walls and pushed every button.

It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon--after someone saw him on a video monitor--that the elevator started up again, Manley said.

Manley said she had no details about White’s ordeal, including how he went without food.

Steve Weiss, a spokesman for McGraw-Hill, which owns Business Week, said the company has asked Rockefeller Center to explain how White could have gone unnoticed for so long.