[HN Gopher] The Big City; Aftermath of 40 Hours in an Elevator (...
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The Big City; Aftermath of 40 Hours in an Elevator (1999)
Author : 1970-01-01
Score : 21 points
Date : 2023-03-09 16:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| kens wrote:
| For more, see this long New Yorker article that includes a lot of
| elevator history:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-do...
|
| The quick summary is that Mr. White recovered from the elevator
| mishap, but his $25 million lawsuit took four years and ruined
| his life. He ended up settling for low six figures, but lost his
| job and his friends.
|
| "Looking back on the experience now, with a peculiarly
| melancholic kind of bewilderment, he recognizes that he walked
| onto an elevator one night, with his life in one kind of shape,
| and emerged from it with his life in another. Still, he now sees
| that it wasn't so much the elevator that changed him as his
| reaction to it. He has come to terms with the trauma of the
| experience but not with his decision to pursue a lawsuit instead
| of returning to work. If anything, it prolonged the entrapment.
| He won't blame the elevator."
| paulpauper wrote:
| Another use for cellphones
|
| Technically, it would not be claustrophobia but cleithrophobia.
| Simialr but not the same.
| setgree wrote:
| The article is pretty lighthearted, but after a day in an
| elevator, I'd be pretty worried about dying of dehydration. I
| suppose you'd know that you'd probably be rescued on Monday no
| matter what, but Friday to Monday is 3 days, which is about as
| long as a human can go without water. (Admittedly he got trapped
| late Friday night.)
| spicybright wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201107114623/https://www.nytim...
| beautifulfreak wrote:
| A time lapse video: https://youtu.be/rxconvkLz2I?t=22
| 123pie123 wrote:
| did he get any money?
|
| found the info: "He got a lawyer, and came to believe that
| returning to work might signal a degree of mental fitness
| detrimental to litigation. Instead, he spent eight weeks in
| Anguilla. Eventually, Business Week had to let him go. The
| lawsuit he filed, for twenty-five million dollars, against the
| building's management and the elevator-maintenance company, took
| four years. They settled for an amount that White is not allowed
| to disclose, but he will not contest that it was a low number,
| hardly six figures"
|
| https://www.overlawyered.com/2008/04/lawyers-making-clients-...
| kahirsch wrote:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/21/up-and-then-do...
|
| Undisclosed settlement, probably "low six figures" (between
| $100,000 and $500,000).
| playingalong wrote:
| Isn't low six figures between 1 million and 10 million?
| jefftk wrote:
| $XXX,XXX is six figures. Single digit millions
| ("$X,XXX,XXX") would be seven figures.
| rationalist wrote:
| I also wrote an explanation, but after I submitted, I saw
| three more, all of which beat mine (yours was the first
| looking at the comment ID), so I deleted it. I personally
| wish that people would check to see if someone else beat
| them or wrote a better answer (yours is also a better
| answer than the other two, but alas this account does not
| have enough karma to downvote the others), and if so,
| delete theirs like I did. Oh well.
| jaywalk wrote:
| 1 million: 7 figures
|
| 10 million: 8 figures
| xyzelement wrote:
| No, a million is 7 figures (one followed by 6 zeros)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-03-10 23:01 UTC)