FEBRUARY 26, 2015
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
A worker on the top floor of a New York City parking garage
somehow survived Wednesday afternoon when a portion of the three-story
structure collapsed beneath him.
According to a report from CBS New York, the West 57th
Street building was undergoing interior demolition when a 50-foot square
portion of the garage came down.
New York Fire Department Chief Dan Donoghue said the worker
on the top floor rode the building all the way to the ground.
“He actually was on the third floor, and when the floors
pancaked down and collapsed, he rode the three stories down and walked out of
the building. He was very lucky,” he said.
The worker only sustained a few scratches.
Portions of the building fell on top of a school bus parked
nearby. Luckily no children were on board and the driver was able to escape
unharmed.
Construction workers on a jobsite across the street told CBS the
collapse sounded like a bomb had gone off.
The cause of the collapse is unknown and an investigation is
ongoing, but it appears that it was a bad demolition design that sequence of
execution that weakened the exterior wall.