Elevator Surfing - Recent History

Recent History

Also called, "Vator Surfing," in recent years practises of both elevator surfing, and its close relative train surfing, have become more widespread. In Toronto, late 2005, this fact was reiterated as the death of an eighteen year old man was highly documented in the Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail newspapers.

The person in question, Canadian-born Louis Tornero Moffit was a political activist and renowned adrenaline junkie. In apparent defiance of the development of Toronto's Four Seasons Centre (a state of the art theatre complex) Louis had intended along with unknown accomplices to disrupt the completion of the theatre through undertaking a BASE jump within the five-tiered auditorium, seating over two thousand. They had intended to record the jump on hand-held video recorders and post the footage on the internet. However this would never come to be, due to the seizure of the video footage by the Toronto Police Service following the death of one of those involved.

According to a report released by the TPS, Louis Tornero Moffit had attempted to "surf" on the roof of an elevator as a further stunt when his parachute malfunctioned and deployed within the shaft. His accomplices operating the controls from within the elevator are rumoured to have then abandoned their mission, and their friend. Emergency services had been notified early in the morning following several witness reports of masked individuals leaving the cordoned off construction site. Louis was pronounced dead on the scene with cause of death being noted as: "strangulation and massive trauma to the head and abdomen due to his harness and parachute becoming entangled with the machinery of the ascending elevator".

Completion of the Four Seasons Centre went ahead as planned, with the grand opening taking place on the eve of June 14, 2006.