NYU Student Wedged Between 2 Buildings Rescued, Now In Stable Condition
Asher Vongtau, the New York University student who was reported missing last Saturday, was found wedged between two buildings in the university’s Manhattan dormitories on Sunday. The 19-year-old was immediately taken to nearby Bellevue Hospital where his condition has been listed as “serious, but stable.”
“He was found on the main-level floor of the building, on his side. He was moving his arms, so we knew he was alive,’’ Fire Chief Joseph Schiralli told the New York Post. “I asked him how old he was, and he said 19. He had been inside of that 2-foot shaft for about a day or two, but he seems to be in good health.”
While the sophomore from Nigeria is still unsure as to how he ended up in the 18-inch narrow opening between NYU’s 18-story dorm and a parking garage, officials said he may have fallen out of a fifth-story window after finding his cell phone on the dorm’s roof. According to his family, Vongtau is suffering from multiple injuries as a result of his accident.
"He really can't remember up until when he fell in there, exactly what happened, maybe as he comes to," Vongtau's mother, Habiba, told WABC Eyewitness News. "[He has] broken bones, arm, and contusions, and cracked, I think fractured pelvis."
Emergency responders reached Vongtau approximately an hour after receiving the call from NYU’s Public Safety who heard his cell phone and cries for help. Vongtau's friends reported him missing after he failed to show up for a fire drill on Saturday morning, and said that, if rescuers did not move as quickly as they did, the outcome could have been fatal.
"We went door-to-door asking people what they knew about him, and one person told us the last that they'd seen, he was headed up the stairs," Vongtau's friend Michael Yablon told WABC. "So we went to security and said, 'Hey guys, you need to go on the roof and check the roof.' And that's where they found his cell phone, and that's how they found him."