NYU Student Hospitalized After Stuck Between Buildings for Two Days

ABC News | @FDNY/Twitter(NEW YORK) — A New York University student is recovering in the hospital Monday after being rescued from between two buildings where he may have been trapped for up to two days.

Firefighters arrived shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday and had to breach a concrete wall to get to Asher Vongtau, 19, who was wedged in a coffin-sized space between a 17-story NYU dormitory building and a parking garage in lower Manhattan.

“We had an unconscious male stuck in between two buildings,” an FDNY spokesman told ABC News. “We had to breach a wall to gain access to get him out.  We had him in serious condition and he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital.”

Vongtau was stuck at the ground floor, the FDNY said. The rescue took about an hour-and-a-half. It is unclear how he got stuck between the two buildings. Officials believe he may have been trapped for up to two days, according to ABC News’ New York station WABC-TV.

NYU did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Friends told WABC that they reported him missing after a fire alarm drill.  When they called authorities to file a missing persons report, they were also told to check the roof of the building.

“We went door-to-door asking people what they knew about him and one person told us that the last that they’d seen, he was headed up the stairs,” Vongtau’s friend, Michael Yablon, told WABC.

Yablon said the friends went to security and told them they needed to check the roof. He said Vongtau’s cellphone was found on the roof and that led to finding him.

“Had we not told the security guards — the three of us 19-year-old students — to check the roof, they would not have found him for who knows how long and he would probably be dead right now,” Yablon said.

Vongtau is in serious but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital, according to WABC.

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