Student hospitalized after getting stuck between buildings

A New York University student is recovering in the hospital today after being rescued from between two buildings where he may have been trapped for up to two days.

Firefighters arrive shortly after 5 p.m. on Sunday and had to breach a concrete wall to get to 19-year-old Asher Vongtau 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 ABCNews.com. "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's New York station WABC.

NYU did not immediately respond to 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 cell phone 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," a distressed Yablon said.

Vongtau is in fair condition at Bellevue Hospital, according to the hospital.

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Source: http://gma.yahoo.com/nyu-student-hospitalized-stuck-between-buildings-2-days-154956768--abc-news-topstories.html
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