5-Year-Old Boy Falls Down Elevator Shaft To His Death!!!!

by **J The Kidd** Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:49 am

5-Year-Old Boy Falls Down Elevator Shaft To His Death!!!! L_d163962967e0cc5e50fde8479350f317

A 5-year-old boy plunged 10 stories to his death today when he tried
to jump out of a chronically malfunctioning elevator in his Brooklyn
building but fell into the shaft, authorities said.

Jakob Neuman was on his way to the Central United Talmudical Academy
with his 8-year-old brother, Israel, just before 9 a.m. when they
boarded the elevator on the 11th floor of 70 Clymer St. in Williamsburg.

It had descended less than a story when it got stuck between the 10th and 11th floors and its door began to open and close.

As his older brother watched in horror, Jakob panicked and jumped about
five feet down to the 10th-floor landing, but lost his footing and fell
backward into the elevator shaft. He landed in the basement about 100
feet below and was declared dead at Brooklyn Hospital not long
afterwards, fire officials said.

Israel then began frantically pounding on the elevator door, neighbors said.

"I heard the kid screaming. He was inside yelling, "Get me out!" said
José Estreda, 78, who lives on the 10th floor. "I forced the door open
and grabbed the boy, put him to my chest and put him on the floor. He
kept screaming and just ran down the stairs. He didn't say anything. He
was crying and scared. I didn't realize someone had got hurt.

"They were both very nice boys," he added.

The building is part of the Taylor-Wythe Houses and is operated by the
New York City Housing Authority. Neighbors said the elevators in all
five of the complex's buildings were very old and frequently had
problems.

These people are putting their lives at risk everyday. [The Housing
Authority] knows about it and they do nothing," said Jacob Levy, who
has lived in the complex for 20 years.

The city Department of Buildings has recorded six complaints about the
building's elevator in the past four years and eight more in the other
buildings.

A spokesman for NYCHA said, "the circumstances of this tragedy are under review."

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said detectives were trying to "determine if there is any criminality or not."

The boy's devastated parents, Chaim and Raizy - members of the
tight-knit Satmar Hasidic community - were out shopping at the time of
the incident and had left the boys with their 14-year-old sister. They
also have two other older daughters.

In keeping with Jewish law, the family quickly held a funeral at the
Yereim Orthodox Chapel. As a rabbi prayed, the boys' mother sat weeping
with her three daughters.

"I don't think words can express the pain and sorrow the family is
going through right now," said community leader Isaac Abraham. "I can
only imagine the pain of the brother who was with him."

Following the 40-minute ceremony, a group of men loaded Jakob's plain
pine coffin into a van and drove it to a cemetery in New Jersey.