Upper East Side parking attendant survives 5-story fall in SUV

A New York City garage parking attendant is happy to be alive this afternoon after he drove a SUV into an empty automobile elevator shaft and plunged five stories down at an Upper East Side garage.

Firefighters and police responding to several 911 calls around 9:43 a.m. Tuesday found a man trapped inside the smashed up vehicle at the garage on East 76^th Street, between First and Seven Avenues.

The attendant, who works for GMC Parking, was parking a black Lexus 350 with New Jersey plates, when the accident occurred.

It took firefighters about 45 minutes to pull the man from the mangled upside-down vehicle.

A second worker, who was inside the elevator when the SUV fell on top of it, was rescued by employees from a nearby Hertz company.

Both men, who have not been identified, were taken to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center, where they were treated for minor injuries.