Can you say 'lawsuit', boys & girls? (I know that you can!)

[samhexum]

A housekeeper who works at a billionaire’s Upper East Side townhouse got trapped in its elevator Friday — and spent the whole weekend in the lift before she was rescued, authorities said.

 

Marites Fortaliza, 53 — who works for big-bucks conservative political donor Warren Stephens at his landmarked tony 48 E. 65th St. building — got stuck between the second and third floors Friday evening while the owners were out of town, authorities said.

 

She was only rescued when a courier went to the home to make a delivery Monday morning, found no one home and called the owners, who sent their daughter — and she realized that the worker was trapped inside the broken-down elevator and phoned 911 around 10 a.m., authorities said.

 

When the owners returned around 10 a.m. Monday, they discovered Fortaliza trapped inside the broken-down elevator and called 911, authorities said.

 

“The person was there since Friday,” an FDNY spokesman said, adding that firefighters forced open the door and rushed Fortaliza to New York – Presbyterian / Weill Cornell Medical Center for an evaluation.

 

The Madison Avenue-adjacent building was purchased in 1999 by Stephens, a billionaire investor and prominent political donor, according to public records and a report in The Observer.

 

A man who answered the phone at the Stephens residence Monday declined comment and then hung up. A man who answered the door also ordered reporters off of his property.

 

The city Department of Buildings previously slapped the townhouse with two violations for failing to maintain the elevator, in 2008 and in 1996.

 

A city buildings inspector arrived at the property Monday but was at least initially not allowed to enter by the people inside, leading the inspector to slap them with a third failure to maintain violation.

 

“Since this is an incident,” ultimately, they have to open the door, said the inspector, Devon Simmons. “I have to do a couple of tests just to make sure exactly what to fix.

“Most likely, it will be a violation,” he said.

 

A spokesman for Stephens Inc. said in a statement, “The employee involved has been a valued member of the Stephens extended family for 18 years. The Stephens family is relieved and thankful that she is doing well in the hospital.

 

“A Stephens family member accompanied her to the hospital this morning and remains at her side. The cause of this unfortunate incident is being investigated and appropriate measures will be taken to ensure that something like this never happens again.”

[+ sync]

Stairlift salespeople, I think there may be a sales lead here.

[samhexum]

They were switched at death.

 

A horrific hospital mix-up left a Brooklyn woman grieving for nine days at the bedside of a brain-damaged man who doctors insisted was her brother — but who was actually a stranger with the same name, a new lawsuit charges.

 

But only after she gave consent to have her “brother” taken off life support at St. Barnabas Hospital did Shirell Powell learn the shocking truth: Her real sibling was in jail — and she had just sent a stranger to his death, her Bronx Supreme Court lawsuit says.

 

“I nearly fainted because I killed somebody that I didn’t even know. I gave consent,” said Powell, 48, of Crown Heights.

 

“I was like, ‘Where is my brother? What is going on?’ I was devastated.”

 

The saga began July 15, when Freddy Clarence Williams, 40, was admitted to the Bronx hospital, unconscious from an apparent drug overdose, according to Powell’s lawsuit.

 

Williams had his Social Security card on him, and it identified him by that name, the court papers say.

 

But the hospital phoned Powell anyway, telling her that her brother, Frederick Williams, who also is 40 but has no middle name, had been admitted and was near death.

 

She rushed to the man’s bedside.

 

“He had tubes in his mouth, a neck brace,’’ Powell told The Post. “He was a little swollen . . . [but] he resembled my brother so much.

 

“He couldn’t speak from the time they brought him in the hospital. They just assumed it was my brother.”

 

After two days of tests, St. Barnabas doctors told her that her “brother” was brain-dead, she said.

 

“That is my baby brother, so it was really hurtful,” she said. “I was worried, hurt, crying, screaming, calling everybody. It was a horrible feeling.”

 

With no cause to hope for his recovery, she contacted relatives down South, telling them to come and say their goodbyes.

 

Powell acknowledged that the first time her sister saw the ailing man in the hospital, she questioned whether he was their sibling.

 

“She walked up into the room and said, ‘That is not my brother,’ ” Powell recalled. “I said, ‘What do you mean?’ ”

 

“The guy was much bigger,’’ Powell explained.

 

But he appeared swollen, and “the eyebrows, the nose, the structure — it looked like [our] brother,” Powell said. “My sister, she walked up closer, and you could see the resemblance, and she was like, ‘Oh, OK.’ ”

 

So on July 29, with her uncle and sister at her side, Powell “authorized [the hospital] to withdraw life support from Frederick Williams,” the lawsuit says.

 

“It was very devastating,” she recalled. “I was crying.”

 

Frederick Williams’ “death” was even harder on his two daughters — Brooklyn, 17, and Star, 18, their aunt said.

 

The teens live in Virginia, and Brooklyn came to the city to say goodbye to her father before he was taken off life support, Powell said.

 

“She was hysterical,” Powell recalled. “She was holding his hand, kissing him, crying.”

 

Only after an autopsy did the city Medical Examiner’s Office reveal the truth: The dead man was Freddy Clarence Williams.

 

Powell said they got a call from a worker at the agency as they were making funeral arrangements.

 

“She called us just in time,” Powell said. “We would have been burying someone else.”

 

Meanwhile, it turned out Powell’s actual brother was in jail on a July 1 assault arrest in lower Manhattan.

 

Powell went to Manhattan Supreme Court for her sibling’s next hearing a few weeks later — just to lay eyes on him.

 

“I saw my brother,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was very relieved.”

 

She also called him on the phone at Rikers Island. They had quite a conversation about her decision to pull his plug.

 

“He was saying, ‘You were going to kill me?’ I explained to him, once you’re brain-dead, there is nothing to do.”

 

Interviewed at Rikers, Powell’s brother said he had forgiven his sister for pulling the plug on the man she thought was him.

 

“The doctors told her they couldn’t do anything,” he said. “I’m not mad at her.”

 

Still, he raged, “How could the hospital do something like that? Look what they put my family through.”

 

Powell’s lawyer, Alexander M. Dudelson, told The Post that he tried to get information about Freddy Clarence Williams, the stranger who died surrounded by Powell’s sobbing family.

 

“The representatives [at St. Barnabas] basically spit in my face,” he said. “This is beyond reckless conduct. I requested an investigation. Nothing more. An apology would have been nice.”

 

Asked about the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, hospital spokesman Steven Clark responded, “We don’t feel there is any merit to this claim.”

 

Powell also asked the ME’s Office for the dead man’s family information so she could send condolences, but it denied the request, citing privacy concerns.

 

Now, Powell says, she remains haunted by questions: The man she had grieved for at the hospital — who was he? Does he have family?

 

“I barely sleep thinking about this all the time,’’ she said.

 

“To actually stand over him and watch this man take his last breath — sometimes I can’t even talk about it because I get upset and start crying.

 

“On the one hand, I’m thankful that it wasn’t [my brother]. On the other hand, I killed somebody that was a dad or a brother.”

 

[samhexum]

The elevator from the first story is 3 feet by 4 feet... for three days!

[samhexum]

I think the obvious punchline is: Thank God she wasn’t subjected to 90 hours (so 3 3/4 days, BTW) of elevator music.

 

The housekeeper who was trapped in a small elevator at an Upper East Side townhouse for three days has been given the week off by her billionaire employer — and has “no intention of suing” him, a neighbor of the woman said Tuesday.

 

“She said her boss is treating her so good, like family,” said the neighbor of Queens resident 53-year-old Marites Fortaliza.

 

Fortaliza endured a weekend of hell when she became stuck Friday in the 3-foot by 4-foot elevator of the 48 E. 46th Street townhome belonging to conservative political mega-donor Warren Stephens and his wife.

The couple’s longtime housekeeper was freed from the elevator Monday morning — only after a courier couldn’t make a delivery at the address and contacted the family, and they discovered her.

 

Fortaliza’s neighbor told reporters gathered at her home Tuesday that Fortaliza wanted to give a message to the media that she would not be coming home and that she will be staying with her sister in New Jersey for a week.

 

“She said she’s doing fine,” the neighbor said, adding that Stephens gave Fortaliza the week off.

 

In a statement through Stephens’ investment banking firm on Monday, the family called Fortaliza “a valued member of the Stephens’ extended family for 18 years.”

[+ purplekow]

I think the obvious punchline is: Thank God she wasn’t subjected to 90 hours (so 3 3/4 days, BTW) of elevator music.

 

The housekeeper who was trapped in a small elevator at an Upper East Side townhouse for three days has been given the week off by her billionaire employer — and has “no intention of suing” him, a neighbor of the woman said Tuesday.

 

“She said her boss is treating her so good, like family,” said the neighbor of Queens resident 53-year-old Marites Fortaliza.

 

Fortaliza endured a weekend of hell when she became stuck Friday in the 3-foot by 4-foot elevator of the 48 E. 46th Street townhome belonging to conservative political mega-donor Warren Stephens and his wife.

https://nypost.com/2019/01/28/woman-spent-her-entire-weekend-trapped-in-an-elevator/

The couple’s longtime housekeeper was freed from the elevator Monday morning — only after a courier couldn’t make a delivery at the address and contacted the family, and they discovered her.

 

Fortaliza’s neighbor told reporters gathered at her home Tuesday that Fortaliza wanted to give a message to the media that she would not be coming home and that she will be staying with her sister in New Jersey for a week.

 

“She said she’s doing fine,” the neighbor said, adding that Stephens gave Fortaliza the week off.

 

In a statement through Stephens’ investment banking firm on Monday, the family called Fortaliza “a valued member of the Stephens’ extended family for 18 years.”

He gave her a week off after willful negligence could have killed her The law in NYC is that elevators have to have 24 hour emergency contact, either a phone, a centrally monitored alarm or a means of seeking help in such a situation,

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

What I find sad in this story is that the housekeeper didn't have anyone notice that she was missing to have help find her earlier.

[+ quoththeraven]

What I find sad in this story is that the housekeeper didn't have anyone notice that she was missing to have help find her earlier.

Which is why having a means of emergency communication in the elevator is so important.

 

It's nice that someone from the family is staying with her in the hospital (though it may be a ploy to ensure she doesn't contact an attorney), but delaying the entry of city elevator inspectors gives me pause. What is the purpose of that? They're already fucked. No amount of instructions or cover-up is going to change that. That's not something people who care about the situation would do.