Fitness Trainer Crippled by NYC Elevator Accident: Lawsuit

A fitness trainer left partially paralyzed in an NYC elevator accident is suing the same elevator-repair company linked to a separate elevator accident that crushed and killed a woman between floors.

Corey Hill, 34, of Manhattan, filed suit against Transel Elevator in connection with the Nov. 12 accident that allegedly crippled him, the New York Post reports.

Hill's NYC elevator accident lawsuit claims he stepped into an elevator on the 26th floor of his apartment building and pressed the button for the lobby. The elevator unexpectedly started to freefall, then jerked to a stop several floors down, the Post reports.

Hill thought he was just shaken, but the next day, he had problems moving his legs, Hill told the Post. The problems escalated, and Hill soon lost all sensation in his legs and couldn't move them, he said.

After nearly a month in a hospital and a rehab center, the fitness trainer came home in a wheelchair and has "to relearn how to walk," he told the Post.

Corey Hill was diagnosed with paresis, a condition in which a patient's brain doesn't communicate properly with his legs, his lawyer told the New York Daily News. Because of the accident, Hill can no longer work as a fitness trainer and has fallen behind in rent, Hill's lawyer said.

Hill's NYC elevator accident lawsuit also says he's now too afraid to use elevators, and must rely on his bodybuilder friends to carry him up and down 26 flights of stairs to his apartment.

Hill's NYC elevator accident suit likely alleges negligence. To succeed, he will have to prove Transel Elevator breached its duty of care in repairing the elevator and caused Hill to suffer injury. Hill's lawsuit also targets a second elevator company, Century Vertical Systems, and his landlord, Stonehenge Properties, the New York Daily News reports.

Transel is also being sued by a witness to a separate NYC elevator accident last month, in which a woman was killed. But Transel insists it hasn't worked on elevators in Hill's building since April 2010, the website Gothamist reports.

Stonehenge's chief operating officer also denied Hill's allegations, adding surveillance video shows Hill was still walking after his alleged elevator freefall. Hill's lawyer insists that's not uncommon with the type of spinal injury Hill suffered.

For his part, fitness trainer Corey Hill seems to be staying positive despite the events described in his NYC elevator accident lawsuit. "I WILL get through this and be back KICKN ASS in a NY minute!" Hill wrote in an email to his students.

Related Resources:

• Fitness Trainer Partially Paralyzed In Elevator Freefall Files Lawsuit (Gothamist)
• Defenses to Negligence Claims (FindLaw)
• New York City Personal Injury Lawyer (FindLaw)
• NYC Elevator Accident Witness to Sue for Trauma (FindLaw's Injured)