Firefighters and EMS personnel rescued two construction workers who were trapped and pinned under a concrete slab after a retaining wall collapsed on them in front of a Springfield Gardens home on Tuesday morning. The FDNY received a call of a trench collapse at around 9:42 a.m. at a two-story home at 135-40 229th St., where the workers became trapped after the porch caved in on them.
“They were trapped under there for a while, one looked unconscious,” a concerned neighbor said at the scene.
Multiple tower ladder and engine companies from across Southeast Queens responded to the location and set up shoring equipment to prevent further collapse under the command of Rescue Battalion 54 and firefighters used special tools to remove the concrete slab to free the trapped workers. Paramedics rushed them to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where they were listed in serious but stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.
Inspectors from the city’s Department of Buildings issued violations for failure to maintain the building and issued a partial vacate order for the front porch and the front door of the building.
