NYU student rescued after becoming wedged between two buildings

A nineteen-year-old New York University student was freed on Monday after spending nearly two days wedged between a dormitory and a parking garage in New York City's TriBeCa neighborhood. 

A native of Nigeria, Asher Vongtau somehow ended up stuck in an 18-inch crevice early on Saturday after a fire alarm was pulled, and was rescued Sunday after spending a chilly night trapped in the tiny area. 

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Vongtau's friends reported him missing but he wasn't located until late on Sunday, when a school security officer spotted him, according to the New York Times. 

Classmates said they last saw him running frantically up the stairs during the fire alarm, while everyone else in the building had been running the opposite direction.  

Friends of Vongtau said that they had a hard time convincing the school to take his disappearance seriously, according to CBS New York. 

"We had to contact his mother ourselves and had her file a police report before they would take it seriously," said friend Nicholas Liem to CBS, who added that they went door to door looking for information until the security guard found him. 

The school says it immediately began a search after receiving word of Vongtau's disappearance early Sunday, where it then began checking emergency rooms and tracking where his student ID had last been used, according to NBC. 

The NYU sophomore is now in serious but stable condition at New York's Bellevue Hospital, where his mother has joined him. 

"He really can't remember up until when he fell in there, exactly what happened, maybe as he comes to," said Habiba Vongtau, Asher's mother, to ABC 7 New York. "[He has] broken bones, arm, and contusions, and cracked, I think fractured pelvis."