YOUNG WOMAN SCARED TO DEATH IN STATEN ISLAND ELEVATOR ACCIDENT

From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Brooklyn Injury Attorney)

On Friday, April 2, 2010 at 11:30 AM, Danielle Goldberg, age 26, was alone riding the elevator to her sixth-floor apartment on Mill Road in New Dorp, Staten Island, New York City, when the building's power failed. She was returning from a doctor's appointment. She used her cell phone to call family members from the elevator, but when rescuers arrived a half hour later, they found her unconscious.

She suffered from a congenital (birth) heart defect. Apparently the accidental stalling of the elevator, her inability to exit the elevator, and its lights going out, frightened her into having a fatal cardiac event.

She died later in the day at Staten Island University Hospital from the accident.

According to Con Edison, the power blackout affected about 1,800 Staten Island customers.

The majority of those customers had power back by before 1 PM, with power restored to the rest of the affected homes and businesses by 5 PM.

The cause of the outage is still unknown, and Consolidated Edison continues to investigate.

Danielle Goldberg's family wants to know the reason for the blackoutand accident, and why their loved one died.