|
A worker fell screaming
11 stories from the roof of a bank building Friday morning onto a moving car,
crushing its roof and sending shattered glass flying into the street, police
and witnesses said.
AP reports that the man
suffered critical injuries, but he was conscious, police said.
The car's driver,
Mohammad Alcozai, was not injured. He told KGO-TV that he's happy to be alive
especially after his car's roof almost completely collapsed in the accident. He
said he is praying that the worker survives.
"I'm very happy that
I wasn't hurt," Alcozai told the news channel shortly after the accident.
"Hopefully he can make it. I pray for him that he can make it."
Alcozai said he saw
something hit his car shortly after making a left turn.
Witnesses described
seeing a blue streak and the man's shadow as he fell and then hearing
shattering glass as he hit the car and then rolled onto the ground. The roof of
the car, a green Toyota Camry, was smashed in, and the rear windshield
shattered.
Bianca Bahman, who was on
the corner where the man fell, said she looked up to see his shadow and ran for
cover.
"As he was coming
down, he was definitely screaming," Bahman, 31, a pre-medical student at
San Francisco State University who was on her way to the gym, said. "It
all happened so quickly. It was so instantaneous."
|
The man, identified by
police only as window washer, was moving equipment on the roof of a bank
building in the heart of San Francisco's financial district and not on a
window-washing platform when he fell, San Francisco police Sgt. Danielle Newman
said. The platform was on the ground at the side of the building, and cables
were hanging from its sides. It was not clear whether the man was setting the
platform up, but he was working with a partner, police said.
Sam Hartwell, 56, of San
Rafael, said he was walking to the building the man fell from for a meeting
when he saw something blue falling.
"I heard the loud
thud and the shattering of the back of the car," he said. "At that
point, I realized it was a body."
He and about 20 other
people ran to the man, who was on his back. The man was lucid, though he was
bleeding.
"He understood we
were with him," Hartwell said.
The bystanders, who
included a nurse, put clothing on the man as they waited for the ambulance.
Hartwell said of his
reaction, "It was utter, immediate shock. How do you react to something
like that?"
No comments:
Post a Comment