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| Electrician Steve Simpson, 53, with Patriot Electric was found dead, crushed by the elevator, inside the 52-story new development tower 555 Tenth Avenue. Here with his wife |
UPDATED, Monday, July 24 at 4:13 p.m.
An electrician was found dead inside the 52-story new development tower 555 Tenth Avenue on Sunday.
Steve Simpson, 53, was pronounced dead at the scene when authorities found him around 7:15 a.m. wedged between an elevator car and the shaft, the New York Post reported.
Police sources told the Post that Simpson was working in the elevator when the power was shut off, and died of asphyxiation when he tried to climb out of the elevator through the opening.
Simpson was working on the fifth floor, a commercial condo owned by Success Academy charter school, the Post reported. Success paid the building’s developer Extell Development $68 million to buy the space in December. Simpson, a native of Jamaica and a U.S. Army veteran, worked for Patriot Electric.
The 52-story project features 478 luxury rental units and 30,000 square feet of amenities, including a rooftop pool.
The city’s Department of Buildings issued a cease-use order on the elevator. Authorities are still investigating the incident.
In response to a recent uptick in construction injuries and deaths, the city is proposing a requirement that workers be trained between 54 and 71 hours.
Officials earlier this month closed down a block on West 58th Street after a ramp fell from Extell’s Central Park Tower construction site. [NYP] – Rich Bockmann.
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An electrician working in a Hell’s Kitchen high-rise dangled lifelessly for hours in an elevator shaft before a security guard found him dead early Sunday morning, police sources said.
Stephen Simpson, 53, had finished up his shift at about 3 p.m. on Saturday at a condominium tower under construction at W. 41st St. and Tenth Ave., when he told his co-workers he had to go back inside and retrieve some personal effects, sources.
That was the last time anyone saw him alive.
Stephen Simpson, 53, and his wife Crystal Simpson, 33, from their wedding 10 years ago. (Courtesy of Simpson Family)
His wife, Crystal Simpson, 33, said she called his cell phone repeatedly, but he wasn’t picking up. He was supposed to take his son Shane bowling for his ninth birthday.
A security guard found Simpson, his head and shoulders trapped between the elevator floor and the door frame on the fifth floor, at about 7 a.m. Sunday, police sources said.
Investigators believe he was riding the elevator when the building’s power shut off, and he pried the doors open manually to get out, sources said. As he climbed out, the elevator lurched upward, crushing him.
Authorities couldn’t say if he died immediately, but he had been dead for some time when the guard found his body. The city medical examiner’s office will determine his cause of death.
A construction worker was found wedged in a elevator shaft in a building on W. 41st St. and 10th Ave. (Norman Y. Lono for New York Daily News)
Simpson, a native of Jamaica who served in the U.S. Army, worked for Patriot Electric. He had planned to buy his son a bicycle for his birthday.
“He loved our son to death and he'd get him anything, he'd do anything for him," Crystal Simpson said. "We were going to go to the store have him pick out a bike for himself and he just never came."