From: "Strong, Lee" <strongl at sddc.army.mil>
To: "WSFAList (E-mail)" <WSFAList at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Paper Weights
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:44:20 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

        New York (Associated Press)  A man who says he sells books and
magazines on the street was rescued after being trapped for 2 days under a
mountain of reading material in his apartment.
        Patrice Moore, 43, had apparently been standing up when the books,
catalogs, mail and newspapers swamped him on Saturday.  Firefighters and
neighbors rescued Moore on Monday afternoon and he was hospitalized in
stable condition Tuesday morning with leg injuries.  "I didn't think I was
gonna get out."  Moore told the New York Post, adding that he called for
help repeatedly.  His landlord discovered him Monday after coming to the
apartment to give Moore a small loan and heard a strange voice inside.  The
landlord pried the door open with a crowbar, found Moore trapped and alerted
the fire department.  The apartment was stuffed from wall to wall and floor
to ceiling with stacks of paper.  Emergency workers and neighbors dug thru
the debris to reach Moore, filling 50 garbage bags with paper.  He was freed
about a half hour later.
        Moore, a former mailroom clerk now receiving public assistance, said
he collected books and magazines for more than 10 years and earned money by
selling them on the street.  The incident recalled the legendary case of the
Collyer brothers, who in 1947 were discovered dead in their house in Harlem
after one of them became trapped under a pile of papers and the other died
of starvation.