A Student at N.Y.U. Is Rescued From a Shaft

University officials said they did not know how the student wound up in a space less than two feet wide between a dormitory at 80 Lafayette Street and a parking garage. One of the school’s security officers spotted the young man before he spent a cold night trapped there, according to John H. Beckman, a university spokesman.

From the garage, firefighters broke through a cinder-block wall to get to the student and provide him oxygen and intravenous fluid while they extracted him, according to Joseph Schiralli, a deputy chief. When they reached the young man, he was sleepy and delirious, Chief Schiralli said.

It took 90 minutes to pull him out and bring him to a waiting ambulance, Chief Schiralli said. Late Sunday night, he was in serious condition at Bellevue Hospital Center, a Fire Department spokesman said.

Students who knew the rescued man identified him as Asher Vongtau and said he was from Nigeria. One of his friends, Colin Chenel, said he had last seen Mr. Vongtau in the dormitory known as Lafayette Hall early Saturday morning after a fire alarm had sounded.

Mr. Chenel said he had not seen Mr. Vongtau, who lives in a different university building, file outside onto Lafayette Street with the residents. After he watched paramedics load his friend into the ambulance, Mr. Chenel, clearly upset, said, “The fact that he was stuck between two buildings makes more sense now.”

Some students said that they had been frustrated in their efforts to report Mr. Vongtau missing on Saturday. But Mr. Beckman said that the first report of his absence was received very late Saturday night.

Mr. Beckman said that the university’s Department of Public Safety began looking for Mr. Vongtau immediately. When some of his belongings were found at Lafayette Hall, officers began searching around that building, Mr. Beckman said.

On Sunday afternoon, he said, an officer heard Mr. Vongtau moaning and located him down the shaft. Whether he fell down there and from where remained a mystery on Sunday night, Mr. Beckman said.

“The circumstances of how the student ended up in the space are unclear to us,” he said.

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