Rush To Death A Tragedy

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UPPER WEST SIDE MAN DIES IN ELEVATOR TRAGEDY
Mon Nov 29, 3:30 AM ET
By DAN KADISON, TOM LIDDY and BRIDGET HARRISON
A retired teacher, with less than an hour to catch a Caribbean cruise, yesterday tried to save time by taking the freight elevator of his Upper West Side building — then plunged 14 stories to his death when it stalled and he tried to climb out.

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Edward Helig, 76, who lived in a penthouse apartment at 168 W. 86th St., had ignored warnings and taken the elevator up from the lobby to pick up his wife, Sally Ordonez, and their luggage because the passenger elevator was not immediately available.
They were heading down again in the freight elevator when it got stuck between the 14th and 15th floors. Helig squeezed out, lost his footing and plummeted down the shaft, cops said.
"The doorman said, 'Don't take it up! Don't take it up!' and he took it up," a source said.
The tragedy unfolded shortly after 3 p.m. when Helig rode the passenger elevator to the lobby to hail a taxi to the passenger-ship terminal on the Hudson River at 50th Street.
The couple was to board a ship departing at 4 p.m. for an 11-day cruise.
"He said, 'I'm desperately late to catch my boat,' " said a neighbor who rode the elevator to the lobby with Helig.
The neighbor said Helig raced out to the street, hailed a taxi and told the driver to wait for him with the trunk open. Then he came back to get his luggage and his wife.
The passenger elevator was not at the lobby level, and he rushed into the freight elevator.
"Next thing I heard, the doorman was hysterical," the neighbor said.
Ordonez had to be rescued from the elevator and was in a state of shock. "She's very distraught. She's really out of it, she cannot talk to anyone," said her brother-in-law, Pat Cacho.
Neighbors said Helig, who had lived in the building since 1966, was an impatient man who frequently argued with his landlord about the elevator.
A building employee said the passenger elevator regularly had problems, and Helig often took the freight elevator, even though he wasn't supposed to.
Additional reporting by Philip Messing
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- posted by Michael P. Whelan @ 2:58 PM