Staten Island woman with heart defect dies trapped in elevator inches from floor when power failed

A Staten Island woman with a congenital heart defect died after she was trapped in an elevator  during a power failure in her apartment building Friday.

Trapped in the darkness and just inches from her floor, Danielle Goldberg panicked - and suffered a fatal heart attack, her devastated family said.
"She lived her life to the fullest until the elevator took her away from us," said her father Arthur Goldberg, 57.
"She was just two seconds away (from home)," he said. "She was in the pitch dark and she probably was scared out of her mind with nobody around to help her."
Danielle Goldberg was born with pulmonary stenosis, which impacts blood flow within the heart, and returned from a doctor's appointment Friday morning to her home in the Tysens Park Apartments, her family said.
She was riding the elevator to the apartment she shares with her parents and brother when the power in her building went out at 11:35 a.m., officials confirmed.
As the small elevator plunged into darkness, a terrified Danielle Goldberg called her mother, who tried to calm the scared woman before calling 911.
Steven Goldberg, Danielle's brother, then ran from the family apartment to the sealed elevator and desperately dialed her sister trapped inside.
"She said 'Steven, I'm scared," Steven Goldberg remembered his sister saying before the cell connection was lost. "It was terrifying."
Steven Goldberg, 29, dashed down five flights of stairs to a neighboring building in the complex to flag down a maintenance worker to help.
The men ran back upstairs and used a crowbar to pry open the elevator doors - only to find a Danielle Goldberg sprawled lifelessly inside.
"I went in there, and I was trying to give her CPR," said neighbor Patricia Sanchez, 49. "I checked for a pulse and there wasn't one."
"I cried and I cried," said Sanchez.
Paramedics arrived at 12:13 p.m., five minutes after receiving the 911 call, and began treating her. They rushed her down the stairs and raced her to Staten Island University Hospital, but she could not be revived.
"Everybody in my family is very saddened by this ordeal," said Steven Goldberg. "Hopefully nothing like this will happen again."
ConEd officials confirmed that 1,800 customers in the New Dorp section of Staten Island lost their power at 11:35 a.m. Friday when a cable went down. For most people, including those in the Tysens Park Apartments, power was restored at 1 p.m.
The failure is under investigation, ConEd said. Management at the private apartment complex could not immediately be reached.

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