The man who was crushed to death while exiting his apartment elevator has been named as Wisconsin native Samuel Waisbren.
The 30-year-old tech sales executive was walking into the lobby of the luxury Manhattan Promenade building on Thursday morning when the elevator suddenly dropped and plunged toward’s the building’s basement.
Waisbren was killed as the top of the elevator crashed down onto him, effectively crushing him between the wall of the shaft and the lift.
One man had already walked into the lobby ahead of Waisbren, but five others were still inside the elevator when it went hurtling downward. They were uninjured.
Waisbren originally hailed from Milwaukee, and had lived in New York City for six years.
Samuel Waisbren (inset) was crushed to death Thursday morning when the elevator he was exiting suddenly dropped and plunged toward’s the building’s basement
Firefighters are pictured looking down the elevator shaft following the incident at 344 Third Avenue
His LinkedIn lists him as an Account Executive at tech company CB Insights.
It’s unclear how long he had been living at Manhattan Promenade – the luxury residential building where one-bedroom apartments lease for $3600 a month.
However, Waisbren’s father, Charles, told The New York Daily News late Thursday that his son had previously complained about elevator problems in the building.
Manhattan Promenade was fined nearly $1,300 in May after inspectors found that a ‘safety feature on one of the elevators was either tampered with or disabled’.
The New York Daily News reports that the building has ’17 past building violations, none of them for elevator issues’.
Waisbren originally hailed from Milwaukee, and had lived in New York City for six years
‘My feeling about New York is you pay a bazillion dollars for rent, the least they could do is provide safety,’ Charles Waisbren stated.
The devastated dad also told the publication that he ‘it would be hard to keep on living’ without his son.
‘Sam was an absolutely wonderful young man. Smart and loving and very, very sensitive. He had his whole life ahead of him.
‘It’s just horrible to feel that he’s not going to grow up to have children, to have his own family, progress in his career,’ he stated.
After the horrific accident on Thursday morning, FDNY Deputy Chief Anthony Arpaia revealed the gruesome details of Waisbren’s death.
Waisbren was exiting the elevator at the lobby-level when the car dropped toward the basement, causing him to become stuck between the elevator car and the shaft wall on the first floor.
Waisbren (far left) is pictured with members of his family. His devastated father, Charles, is seen at the far right
The 30-year-old died when he became trapped between the elevator car and a shaft wall and was crushed on the first floor of the building. The incident happened at 344 Third Avenue
Arpaia claimed Waisbren ‘was sort of stuck between the first floor and basement’ and he said some of the other passengers were left in the car as it made its descent.
Waibsren was pronounced dead at the scene by the city’s Medical Examiner, an FDNY spokesman told DailyMail.com
A building employee said security footage from the lobby recorded the horrifying accident.
The employee told the New York Times that Waisbren tried to put his hand out to try to prevent the door from closing as the elevator went down.
‘Like jumping out of a car if it’s still moving,’ the building employee said.
The footage apparently shows two people stepping out of lift just before the lift collapsed, the employee said.
Worryingly, it has emerged that the Manhattan Promenade, the upmarket building where the incident happened in Gramercy, was fined nearly $1,300 in May after inspectors found that a ‘safety feature on one of the elevators was either tampered with or disabled’.
The Manhattan Promenade is described as a ’23-story luxury rental apartment building’ in the Gramercy area. It was built in 1997 and contains 188 residential and commercial units
The safety feature, known as a door zone restrictor, stops an elevator door from opening more ‘than a few inches when an elevator in between floors’. City records did not show that it had been fixed, the outlet reported.
The building has two elevators for tenants, and management had been ordered to stop using the one which had safety issues until it was fixed, according to The New York Times.
A building inspector told the New York Times that Waisbren was not on the elevator that had been the subject of the fine, but on a second elevator.
A medical examiner was seen arriving at the scene to conduct a preliminary investigation before a post-mortem takes a place.
The official cause of death has not been revealed, but it is understood the elevator reportedly left the man trapped between the elevator car and a wall within the elevator shaft
The spokesman claimed that the death will be investigated by police and the Department of Buildings which were at the scene to establish the cause.
A Department of Buildings spokesman told DailyMail.com: ‘DOB is investigating this incident aggressively and will take all appropriate enforcement actions.
‘Elevators are the safest form of travel in New York, due to the city’s stringent inspection and safety requirements.
‘We’re determined to find out what went wrong at this building and seek ways to prevent incidents like this in the future.’
The Manhattan Promenade is described as a ’23-story luxury rental apartment building’ in the Gramercy area.
It was built in 1997 and contains 188 residential and commercial units, according to a description on StreetEasy.