A surveillance camera captured the horrific moment a senior was killed by falling masonry on the sidewalk of her New York home after she stepped outside to sweep the snow.
Dale Singer, 74, was rushed to the hospital after the concrete porch surrounding the front door collapsed around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Witnesses said the elderly woman had just turned to lock the door on 6th Avenue in Brooklyn when she was crushed by the bricks.
Neighbor Miyra Martinez said Singer rented a duplex in the 19th century mansion with her husband and daughter.
“She was a very nice lady and I am very sad to hear that she died this way,” she added.
Surveillance footage from a neighbor captured the moment the falling rock crushed the woman (her figure is circled here just before the tragedy struck)
Neighbors said Dale Singer Singer rented a duplex in the 19th century mansion with her husband and daughter
The elderly woman had just stepped out of her home to sweep snow from her sidewalk when the tragedy occurred
Huge piles of concrete masonry littered the Brooklyn street after the accident at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday
Martinez said the owner lived in the building and the building’s ownership records belong to Steven Cottone and Antoinette McRae.
A phone listing for McRae was not accepting calls Tuesday afternoon.
Police who arrived at the scene resuscitated the woman before she was taken to Maimonides Hospital in Borough Park in a critical condition. She was later pronounced dead.
Tragedy struck as NYC was hit by its worst winter storm in more than two years, leaving the city blanketed in snow on Tuesday morning.
New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport had received 4 inches of snow by 1 p.m., and 3.7 inches of snow had fallen at La Guardia Airport. Wind gusts of up to 40 mph were recorded in New York Harbor and Jamaica Bay experienced coastal flooding of one to two feet.
All public schools were closed by Mayor Eric Adams and children attended classes remotely.
The snow had melted by the time investigators recovered the shovel the eldest had used to clean her sidewalk
The New York Department of Buildings records no previous structural concerns about Singer’s building, but the FDNY has now requested a structural stability inspection due to the building’s “shaking/shaking.”
The snowfall stopped around 1 p.m. and there were only small accumulations of snow as office workers headed home from Manhattan this evening.
The fatal brick collapse in Brooklyn comes after pedestrians were lucky to escape with their lives after dozens of bricks fell from the 16th floor of Jackson Houses in the Bronx in April this year.
And falling masonry killed architect Erica Tishman, 60, outside a 17-story building on 49th Street, Manhattan in October 2018.
Two-year-old Greta Greene was killed on her grandmother’s lap in 2015 when a large piece of brick fell from an eighth-floor windowsill onto the Manhattan park bench where they were sitting.
The New York Department of Buildings reports no previous structural concerns about Singer’s building, but the FDNY has now requested a structural stability inspection due to the building’s “shaking/shaking.”