'I Could've Been Killed': Falling Bricks From Midtown Building Leave 2 People Injured
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Bricks falling from an office building in Midtown sent two people to the hospital Tuesday morning.
The street is still partially closed to traffic, reports CBS2's Reena Roy.
Surveillance video shows a woman being wheeled off on a stretcher after bricks came crumbling down to the ground from a high-rise office building on 39th Street.
Fifty-one-year-old Lisa Finney was hit by cement chunks. She spoke with CBS2 exclusively by FaceTime.
"I just felt pain and things hitting me, and then I saw scattering and people scream and run. So I thought, the first thought was an explosion," Finney said.
She says she was walking to work on 39th street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues around 9:30 a.m. when the cascade of bricks came raining down onto her from the 17th floor of the building.
"I didn't know what it was, actually, at first, but the debris just started, I felt things hitting me, you know, hard and it hurt," Finney said.
But she couldn't escape the debris, which fell at random onto the busy Midtown street. They hit her all over, leaving her with severe cuts and bruising. Another man also had a minor leg injury.
"It was a scary situation," Finney said. "I'm bruised here, my ankle and leg are swollen."
"I just heard this crashing and I just came out and saw this pile of brick rubble," said Ryder Schumacher. "I just heard some people yelling and I saw one guy on the ground grab his leg."
Officials say the bricks were knocked off the building façade by suspended scaffolding, which somehow loosened with two workers on it.
"I just seen the scaffold rock to one side then it rocked to the other, then we just seen debris falling and guys holding on for their dear lives," witness Gregory Jackson said. "I mean, it was horrifying."
The two workers were not hurt.
Finney is just thankful she somehow made it out relatively OK.
"It could've been so much worse. I could've been killed," she said.
The Department of Buildings is now on scene to find a cause. The scaffolding has been secured.