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A 21-year-old suburban man's deadly slip in a vacant Detroit building this past weekend stirs online discussions about comradeship, responsibilty and the meaning of friendship.
The accident occurred while trespassers who arrived together were playing hide-and-seek at an abandoned warehouse in the 1900 block of Ferry Street, near St. Aubin Street, The Detroit News confirms Monday.
The urban explorers' destination on East Ferry Street is alongside tracks. (Photo: Google Earth)The site of the fatal accident is the former Grand Trunk Warehouse & Cold Storage facility, built in the late 1920s. The building, which stored food for Beatrice Foods Co., was next to the Grand Trunk Western Railroad tracks.
The facility closed in 2002, and is a favorite haunt for trespassers. Photos of the building are posted on several websites dedicated to "urban explorers."
Two Facebook tributes identify the victim as Jonathan Mazgai of Taylor, a laborer at a Canton energy services firm.
"Jonathan was an amazing young man," posts John Linemeyer, a Commerce Township insurance executive. "He was always helping out others. The hurt we all feel is so deep. Keep him and his family in your prayers."
Shortly after midnight on Saturday morning, he apparently fell down a ninth-floor elevator shaft. The warehouse is roughly a mile from the Packard Plant, originally misidentified as the accident site in a police text alert.
Jonathan Mazgai reportedly is the victim.
After companions coudn't find Mazgai, they returned in the morning to search and spotted him in debris at the first-flood elevator area, police say.
The fellow urban explorers' overnight departure draws a flurry social media comments under media coverage and at a Dearborn Area Community Members page with over 31,000 Facebook followers.
"They cared more about being caught for trespassing than the life of their friend," posts Jennifer Elahi of Dearborn Heights. Raed Berro asks: "Who leaves somebody behind that they came with?"
These are among other reactions:
- We played hide-and-seek one time a few years ago [at the Packard], but I would never leave a man behind ever. And it’s too dangerous to play at night. There too many unexpected holes. -- Zachary, Detroit
- I cannot understand leaving your friend in an abandoned building in the middle of winter overnight. -- Heather Cox, Troy
- If they truly were his friends, they would have sought help and stayed until they found him! -- Lowary Ann Mullins-Barrett, Detroit
- Nice friends. -- John Newton, Warren
- What a bunch of loser friends. Hope they can barely live with themselves for leaving a friend behind in the middle of winter at a abandoned building in Detroit. -- Joe Pace, Warren
- Wow. They left and then came back in morning. Wonder how long he laid there suffering. Hope it haunts them in their dreams. -- Paul Levendoski, Ferndale
- Who leaves their friend behind? Came in with nine and left with eight and decided to sleep on it and come back in the morning? -- Brian Havey, Sterling Heights
- You look for your friend till you find him, regardless. -- Giuseppe Jones
- His "friends" left him there overnight and came back the next day? Nobody called for help? That poor man could have been alive but instead died a miserable death. -- Donna
- You know he didn't just walk away! Call the police! Search for him! What they gonna charge you with, a misdemeanor trespassing charge? Where I come from we dont leave our friends! Y'all came together, suppose to go home together -- no matter what! -- Dennis Hampton, native Detroiter now in Houston
