NYC - Parking lot attendant plunges 5 stories in SUV

A parking attendant miraculously escaped serious injury when he drove an SUV into an empty elevator shaft and plunged five stories at an upper East Side garage, authorities said.

The driver backed the black Lexus 350 into the shaft and, the vehicle flipped as it fell onto an elevator platform at street level at City Valet Parking on E. 76th St. between First and Second Aves.

FDNY responders removed the driver from the mangled upside-down vehicle and brought him and another employee to New York-Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries, the FDNY said.

The second worker had been inside the elevator when the car fell on top of it, authorities said.

Their names were not released. Sources said the driver may not have noticed there was no elevator on the fifth floor because he was backing in.

Firefighters used a metal rig to extract the crumpled SUV, an FDNY spokesman said.

"It is believed he was bringing the car out. We don't know what happened from there," FDNY spokesman Jim Long said at the scene.