(NECN: Scot Yount, Lynn, Mass.) - Dist Chief James McDonald/Lynn Fire says: "You can’t describe how lucky someone is in this situation.”
The roof simply collapsed, firefighters think under the weight of at least three feet of heavy wet snow. The flat roof of this transportation building simply let go trapping two men inside a car. First rescuers have to find the car under a mountain of steel beams, roofing and snow.
Dist Chief James McDonald/Lynn Fire:
“We had them on cell phone the whole time.”
Two hours in fact, about 30 firefighters digging through the rubble worried about their own safety.
Dist Chief Jack Barry/Lynn Fire
“We are obviously concerned about a secondary collapse, the structure have been very severely damaged.”
Once emergency responders got to the car they couldn’t believe the two men inside were not only alive, but relatively unhurt.
Dist Chief James McDonald/Lynn Fire
“They were still seated in the passenger seat kind of hunched down in their seats with the roof of the vehicle just above the headrests.”
That’s when the power tools came out. Firefighters cut a hole in the roof of the car to get the two men out safely. Those men very lucky because of the way their car was oriented when the roof came crashing down...the chief demonstrating as if his flashlight is the car.
Dist Chief James McDonald/Lynn Fire
“So they fell on the vehicle from the hood to the truck, had the car been oriented in this position, the beams would have been across the doors.”
And might have crushed the car completely. The chief said he was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner, and… Dist Chief James McDonald/Lynn Fire “It could happen again. You know we have had a lot of snow and we are gonna get more, buildings like this don’t get shoveled off.”
