Results tagged “fall”

A tourist injured herself yesterday when she fell eight feet into an "amphibious assault vehicle" on display aboard the USS New York. The woman was visiting the newly commissioned warship — which is forged out of steel salvaged from the remains of the World Trade Center — when she tumbled into a smaller vessel like those "that carried soldiers before they stormed the beaches of Normandy during World War II," the Post reports. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where she is in stable condition. The naval ship will leave its dock at Pier 88 tomorrow and sail to Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, where it will begin active duty, according to the boat's website.

At around 1:15 this morning a report came in over the newswire that a male had fallen down an elevator shaft at Broadway and Berry Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A reader sent in photos shortly after, and the building the incident took place in is actually at 338 Berry, between South 4th and South 5th streets — a former noodle factory converted into various multi-use spaces, including residential lofts. The victim was at a party in the building being hosted by the Uniform Project. After the fall he was in serious condition, unconscious and unresponsive. We'll update when we get more details.

Over the weekend, a Manhattan man survived falling into the PATH train tracks—and having a train roll over him! According to the Star-Ledger, the man, 32, "appeared intoxicated" when he "fell off the platform" at the Pavonia station and "rolled into the center of the tracks at around 9 p.m."

It's been a few weeks since we've checked in on the foliage situation, and after seeing these hidden patches of color at the NY Times, we got a little worried we might be missing out on the changes. So, we turned to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden horticulturists, who gave us these helpful tips if you can't make it out of town this season:

A NJ man fell to his death from an escalator at Atlantic City's Pier at Caesars shopping center. According to the Press of Atlantic City, the victim, James Vellanti, was "chief operating officer for the hedge fund JNF Asset Management LLC in New York." The police are investigating the incident, which is the second fatal fall there in 13 months (last year, a 25-year-old man was sitting on the moving escalator's handrail and fell to his death).

The foliage is coming! The foliage is coming! And soon everything will look like a happy little burnt-sienna-filled Bob Ross painting. Now that the dog days of summer are officially behind us, we'll get a short burst of brisk fall weather and trees bursting with color (even in the Bronx) before winter freezes us over. Kottke points to a foliage map so you don't miss the leaves turning; you can even become and ambassador and give reports from your location (right now we're still green).

At this very moment, 5:18 p.m., we shed ourselves of summer and enter the fall months (an explanation of the autumnal equinox can be found here). The days are darker, the air is brisker, the leaves are crunchier, the subway platform temperature is more tolerable... enjoy it before the snow cometh.

Early yesterday morning, a woman fell to her death outside an Upper West Side townhouse. It's believed that 37-year-old woman was locked out of an apartment at 152 West 76th Street, so she tried to climb in from the outside.

Last night an unidentified man survived a suicide plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge after threatening police officers who were trying to talk him down. The 38-year-old man was approached by cops around 10:30 p.m as he clung to a girder about 35 feet away from the tower on the Brooklyn side. After waving a knife at them, he plunged to the East River, at least 120 feet below. Rescuers pulled him from the waters and rushed him to Lutheran Hospital, where his condition is not known. But police sources tell the Post investigators are checking the van with Jersey plates he abandoned at the scene to see if he left a note. And it's not unheard of for jumpers to survive suicide attempts on the East River bridges; in January a man jumped from the Manhattan Bridge, drifted to the Brooklyn shore, and walked away (photos).

To paraphrase Mel Brooks, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when a Staten Island teen falls down an open manhole while text-messaging." 15-year-old Alexa Longueira was walking with a friend around 5 p.m. yesterday and was about to send a text when she felt the ground give way: "She literally just handed me the phone and I opened it [and] I felt this big drop. It was four or five feet, it was very painful. I kind of crawled out and the DEP guys came running and helped me. ... They were just, like, 'I'm sorry! I'm sorry!'" Longueira got some scrapes on her arms and back (pictured), but doctors are concerned about possible spine damage and want a follow-up MRI. A DEP spokesperson says workers left the manhole momentarily to retrieve cones from the truck and expressed "regret." But Alexa's mother is determined to sue the city, and argues that it doesn't matter whether Alexa was texting or not; the manhole shouldn't have been left open. She tells the Staten Island Advance that even though the sewer wasn't full, "Oh my God, it was putrid. One of her sneakers is still down there."

Anthony Marshall, the 85-year-old son of the late philanthropist Brooke Astor, fell in a bathroom, hitting his head, in the courthouse where he is on trial for stealing from his mother's fortune. The Daily News reports, "The accident happened around 11:30 a.m. Some 45 minutes later, paramedics were still trying to treat Marshall. His wife, Charlene, was also inside the men's room comforting him." His lawyer said, "He was dizzy and fell. He fell down in the stall and hit his head." The Post, which notes that Marshall requested to see a doctor being he wasn't feeling well yesterday, has a sad picture of Marshall wearing an oxygen mask and sitting on a gurney.

A welder had a close call yesterday when he fell down a shaft on the 16th floor of an Upper East Side construction site. Luckily, the Daily News reports that George Saguay "was saved by a tangle of duct work" in the E. 77th Street building. Around 2:30 p.m., he slipped—prompting a co-worker to yell, "Yo, a guy just fell down the chute!" The duct work stopped his fall after four stories and his co-workers tried to reassure him. Firefighters were able to cut through and extract him, taking Saguay to New York-Presbyterian hospital to treat his minor injuries. A colleague observed, "He was really quiet and patient. But you could see the pain on his face."

Police say that a 9-year-old who fell 13 stories was wearing a "parachute" made of a plastic bag at the time of his fall. Domori Miles was found in a lot near his building in Brooklyn's Albany Houses. According to WCBS 2, "Police said while his mother was running an errand, Domori used a large plastic bag tied to his arms. He then went to the roof using a door that had no alarm. He got over the fence and plunged to his death. "

Last night around 7:15 p.m., a boy died after falling from a housing development in Crown Heights. His body was found in a lot near the Albany Houses on Bergen Street. The boy was between the ages of 9 and 12, and neighbors were stunned; one told the Daily News, "I can't get over this. It is unbelievable." The police are investigating what happened: While there was an open window on the 5th floor, the NY Post reports, "It wasn't immediately known where he fell from, but cops believe it's more likely the roof of the 13-story building rather than one of the apartments." If he did fall from the roof, police will also try to determine if the boy jumped, fell or was pushed. Update: It appears the 9-year-old jumped from the roof using a "makeshift parachute" of a plastic bag and strings.

A 29-year-old man fell to his death on Wednesday night when he seemingly tried to find a way into his locked apartment in Greenwich Village. The Post reports that Matthew Morahan had been drinking earlier and was "trying to climb onto his balcony from the roof... Though police had not officially ruled out suicide, a police source and neighbors said [he] had told the super he lost his keys -- only minutes before he fell at 11:45 p.m." Apparently there was a "three-foot wall that separates a rooftop walkway from his terrace" and it's suspected he slipped on that and fell 11 stories. Morahan, a bond trader, landed on a truck "with a bang so loud that 911 callers reported hearing an explosion." He was dead by the time responders arrived. Morahan's neighbor told the Post, "This guy was very friendly, very happy... This was a tragic accident."

A Brooklyn man is suing the city for an unspecified sum over an altercation with a rookie NYPD officer that turned him into a paraplegic. Shawn Lewis says officer Jason Boreman shoved him off the roof a building in 2005 after he ran from police who were intervening in an incident involving his ex-girlfriend. Lewis's lawyer says that after Boreman caught Lewis, he asked, "What are you doing running from the police?" and shoved him in the chest, sending Lewis on his spine-severing tumble off the roof. Boreman denies pushing Lewis, and says he was actually hanging over the side of the building and lost his grip. Another officer involved, Sgt. John Marchello, testified that he was on the roof but didn't see what happened; when he later approached Lewis on the ground, Machello said, "Police, don't move!" To which Lewis responded, "I can't move." His lawyer asserts the rookie cop was "asserting his authority," but city attorney Susan Scharfstein tells the Daily News Lewis admitted to Internal Affairs that he fell accidentally.

Last night TMZ reported that Natasha Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, was seen entering Lenox Hill Hospital to visit her daughter sometime just before 9 p.m. Richardson, a Tony-winning stage and film actress was transported to New York yesterday after suffering a brain injury during a skiing accident in Canada.

A Bronx family is mourning this Christmas Day after 7-year-old Chelsea Maldonado died after falling 50 feet. The girl, who is described as autistic (the Daily News says she uses a wheelchair and is blind in one eye), had apparently climbed out the apartment's bathroom window around 7 p.m. last night. Chelsea had survived the fall—a source told the Post that when a cop got there, "He was surprised to learn that she fell from a fifth-story window," since she was conscious and crying—and doctors initially thought she might survive. The girl had been in the bathroom alone and somehow climbed over the window guard, which was only covering the lower part of the window. A shocked neighbor said, "You can see I have window guard in all my window, because I want to avoid something like that."

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is airing on ABC tonight...set your DVRs, or sit yourself down at 8 p.m. sharp. The special is also available on YouTube, of course, but it's just not the same as seeing it in Prime Time. Stay tuned to see if this year Charlie Brown really does kick that football...

19-year-old David Diaz (pictured here with his former girlfriend) recently moved from Harlem to the Bronx, but on the last night of his life he was palling around with friends in his old neighborhood, tossing eggs off a roof on West 135th Street. When one of their targets headed up on the roof to confront the teens—wielding a knife according to one report—the youths scattered. The Daily News says that Diaz, his right arm in a sling from a football injury, tried to escape by jumping over a brick wall he thought separated one building from another. Instead, he fell six stories to the courtyard below.

This story goes out to anyone with a case of the Mondays: That 12-year-old girl who survived a fourteen-story fall down a chimney by landing on collected soot appeared yesterday at a music festival in the courtyard of her Bethune Street building and sang the spiritual "Deep River." Afterwards, Grace Bergere had some inspiring words for a NY Post reporter: "Everything is a bit more intense now that I'm still alive. I appreciate things that I didn't before. You see the beauty in a lot of things that you didn't - like walking in the park. I used to walk around with my eyes closed." Bergere dislocated her hip and fractured five back vertebrae in the 100-foot fall, which occurred as she tried to show a visiting cousin a view of the city from the roof. After a month in the hospital, she finally returned home two weeks ago: "I still have back pain, but I'm able to walk."

A young couple in the Bronx died yesterday when they fell off a roof and plummeted six stories where their bodies landed entwined together in the courtyard below. Both police as well as friends and family of Michael Rodriguez, 21, and Melissa Lopez, 19 believe that their death was an accident and not a suicide. But it is unclear exactly why the couple was on the roof of the Parkchester building at 4:30 a.m., miles from where they lived.

A 22-year-old woman was hospitalized last night with a head injury after falling six floors in an apartment building elevator, NY1 reports. After visiting her neighbor on the sixth floor of 90 Pinehurst Street in Washington Heights, Jessica Carter entered an elevator which malfunctioned and crashed to the basement. No details yet on the extent of her injuries, but she was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital around midnight with head injuries. And residents in the building are outraged because a few months ago the elevator fell from the first floor to the basement, hospitalizing one resident. The building's superintendent denies any prior problems with the elevator, but the Department of Buildings is investigating. And we'll be taking the stairs today.

Eric Davis, the twenty-year-old man who fell through a broken sidewalk subway grate in Bed-Stuy on Friday morning has told his story to the Daily News from the confines of his bed at Kings County Hospital, where he's convalescing after plummeting ten feet into a filthy shaft: "I don't feel like it's bad luck ...because I survived. The one thing I did [was] I made sure I didn't bump my head. The lady paramedic made sure I was 100% comfortable while I was on the way to the hospital. She deserves a raise." Davis declined to say whether he plans to sue the MTA, but if a Daily News reporter can get in to talk with him, you can bet Jackie Chiles has already slipped Davis his card.

Women in heels and skirts know to steer clear of sidewalk subway gratings, as do most people averse to fetid gusts of air from beneath the city’s streets. But sometimes when you’re rushing down a crowded sidewalk, you take your chances. And sometimes you fall in, as happened this morning to a man who crashed through a subway grate at the corner of Willoughby Avenue and Marcy in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The victim was rescued and taken to Kings County Hospital; the extent of his injuries is unclear, but last year a woman fell through a sidewalk grate on 52nd Street and lived to tell the terrifying tale.

The 12-year-old girl who survived a fourteen-story fall down a chimney by landing on collected soot is not out of harm's reach just yet. The Daily News reports that she is still in intensive care with "a thousand tubes coming out of her." Grace Bergere's father talked to the paper while the jazz musician held onto a commitment to play a gig in the Poconos last night saying, "She's having a hard enough time breathing. There were six different things that could have killed her." Grace was trying to show her cousin a view of the Manhattan skyline when she fell on Thursday night.

Last night, a 12-year-old girl fell 15 stories (according the Post--the Daily News says it was 14 stories) down a chimney at the Westbeth Building on Bethune Street. Apparently the girl, who was on the roof alone (it's unclear what she was doing up there), managed to climb up to a two-story chimney and fell inside.

NYMag has the breaking news that the 15th century terra-cotta relief of Saint Michael the Archangel by Andrea della Robbia has taken a fall off the wall at the Met, from the same spot it has hung on metal mounts for twelve years (though the museum acquired it in 1960). The time of the tumble is uncertain, but occurred sometime overnight, and the curators have been assessing the damage today. While the sculpture is not irreparably harmed, how did the 62 x 32-inch piece fall in the first place?

WNBC is reporting someone fell at Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty is located: "Park Service officials said the worker fell about 20 feet from a cooling tower and into a pit on Liberty Island." The worker was put on a stretcher and lifted from the pit into a helicopter, which will fly the victim to a hospital in NJ.

after 911 was called, an ambluance appeared... from Staten Island.