Half a dozen workers on Long Island (NY) were hospitalized, three of them in critical condition, after part of a building collapsed on them yesterday afternoon.
A 1: 30 pm, the two-story facade of a storage building that was in the process of being renovation at 840 Middle Country Road, near the border between the towns of Smithtown and St. James, in Suffolk County , broke off and fell forward. At that time, a mechanical elevator approximately one and a half stories high was placed directly in front of the wall, with some workers on it.
Both they and the elevator fell to the ground with force, according to eyewitnesses like John Gomez. “I just heard the noise… and I see the boys bleeding,” he narrated to Pix16.
“As if a bomb had fallen”
Jaime Armendáriz, eyewitness to the accident
Of the six injuries, three were critical. One worker was so seriously injured that he had to be airlifted to hospital. There were heavy cement blocks everywhere and thick dust, said Jaime Armendáriz, another eyewitness. “As if a bomb had fallen,” he said.
A Suffolk County police officer who had just left the car wash located next to the building ran to the men’s aid, using her training emergency doctor with them and asking for help immediately.
Rodney Harrison, the Suffolk Police Commissioner, praised the officer for her bravery, in a brief press conference at the scene the afternoon of Yesterday. “Some of the workers actually call her a hero because of the sorting job she did,” Harrison said. “[She was] able to get an immediate response from ambulances and medevacs to get transportation.”
The authorities were investigating the cause of the collapse of the building. The names of the victims were not immediately released.