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Worker Rescued From Collapsed Building in Northwest DC, 4 Others Injured
A person is trapped and several others are hurt after a building collapsed in Northwest DC.
Local
Firefighters sawed through layers of rubble for more than an hour Thursday evening to rescue a construction worker from the wreckage of a building that collapsed in Northwest D.C.
A special operations team with D.C. Fire and EMS talked to the man throughout the process, and he was alert, conscious and speaking as they got him out of the building in the 900 block of Kennedy Street NW, Fire Chief John Donnelly said.
News4's Shomari Stone was at the scene and reports he could hear the man say "Ow, ow" as firefighters got him onto a stretcher to get him to an ambulance.
Donnelly said the worker was trapped in what the department calls a "pancake collapse" underneath three floors of debris with only eight inches of space around him. A K-9 sniffed out the spot where the man was closed in, which helped firefighters get to work on his removal.
Crews used chain saws, electric saws, pry bars and manual labor to meticulously cut out the rubble.
Donnelly said the man is very lucky to be alive.
"We've seen these before where the people didn't [survive] so he was definitely blessed today," Donnelly said.
Firefighters told News4's Mark Segraves that as soon as the man got out he asked for two things: water and for someone to call his mother.