Man hospitalized after 8- to 12-foot fall down elevator shaft in abandoned North Side building

A man was hospitalized Thursday after falling 8 to 12 feet down an elevator shaft in an abandoned building on Pittsburgh’s North Side, police said.

Pittsburgh paramedics, police and firefighters were dispatched around 2:30 p.m. to the building in the 900 block of River Avenue, near the border between the city’s North Shore and Troy Hill neighborhoods, police said.

Rescue crews said they found the man in the pit of the elevator shaft.

Four paramedics were lowered down into the space, which was confined, had no light and offered poor ventilation.

It is unclear what the man, who police did not name, was doing in the building.

The man was conscious but one of his legs was pinned “for an unknown period of time,” police said. Paramedics gave him fluids and pain medication, placed him on a board and hoisted him out of the shaft.

The man was taken to an area hospital in stable condition with “multiple leg fractures,” police said.

City inspectors plan to evaluate the building.