It is almost as if the rich people have lost touch.
A 53-year-old housekeeper was trapped in the elevator of her billionaire employer's New York apartment building for three days last weekend. What caused the elevator to malfunction is unclear, but the woman was in stable condition after being rescued Monday morning and has since been released from the hospital.
Being trapped in an elevator for approximately 72 hours is a difficult thing to endure. This should not be controversial. But this woman's feat was not impressive enough for one of her employer's neighbors, who is another rich person on the Upper East Side.
"Humans can last well over 72 hours ... without water," the man said on cable news station NY1. "So what she went through isn't anywhere close to the limits of human endurance. It's just beyond we're used to because we've become so civilized we've lost touch with our true strength."
On @NY1: 53 y/o housekeeper trapped in billionaire's townhouse elevator for 3 days.
Rich UES neighbor: "humans can last 72hrs w/o water... what she went thru isnt anywhere close to human endurance, but its beyond what we're used to be bc we've lost touch w our... strength." ? pic.twitter.com/JP4TgIKh5Y— Josmar Trujillo (@Josmar_Trujillo) January 28, 2019
Writer Josmar Trujillo tweeted a clip of the interview late Monday. People instantly started — correctly — to make fun of the bizarre and highly villainous neighbor. Luckily, a really good thread roasting Peloton bikes (think SoulCycle, but in private homes and extremely bougie) made the rounds earlier that day, so everyone had their "rich people exercising" jokes at the ready.
by all means let's let the man demonstrate to us the level of human endurance he discusses
— Bananawatermelon (@Bananaaquamelon) January 29, 2019
"Because we've become so civilized we've lost touch with our 'true' strength." Said the grown, healthy man, who pays a middle age woman to do menial tasks and chores, with his own private elevator and possibly botoxed jowls. Yes. Very rugged.
— falenewriteswords (@fn_writeswords) January 29, 2019
NY1 reporter Kristen Shaughnessy, who interviewed the man, defended his response on Twitter. "To be fair, Ian [the man] is from Newport, RI and was in the Navy for 10 years," she wrote. "...His point was that people find incredible strength when driven to their limits. He did acknowledge it was an extremely traumatic event and he hoped she would be okay. He was just coming at it from his years of service rather than how most people reacted."
Still, it might have been better if he'd focused on the "hoped she would be okay" part.
How long humans can live without water depends largely on the conditions around them. Under perfect circumstances, it's possible to survive for a week, but if an environment is hot or dry, it could be a matter of days before things get dire, biology professor Randall Packer told NBC News in 2015.
And any way you slice it, being stuck in an elevator for three days sucks. Perhaps this interviewee will spend some time in an elevator this weekend and gain some clarity.
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