Glass Falls From High-Rise Building in Midtown, 4 Hurt: Officials

Four people were injured when a piece of equipment hit and broke a window of a midtown high-rise where workers were doing renovations Thursday, sending shards of glass plummeting 18 stories to the street below, law enforcement officials say.

The glass fell from a building on West 57th Street near Sixth Avenue shortly before 9 a.m., officials say. A worker on a rolling scaffold lost balance and pushed the scaffold into the plate-glass window, about 5 feet by 7 feet, shattering the window, according to a Department of Buildings spokesman. 

Two women and a man on the street were injured, as was one of the workers, fire officials said.

Broken glass was spotted on the sidewalk as emergency crews tended to the victims. One woman was hit in the head and was taken to the hospital. The other woman and the man refused medical treatment, and the construction worker was treated at the hospital and released.

All of the victims are expected to be OK, officials said.

FDNY Battalion 9 Chief Tom Mara said about a quarter of the several hundred pound window pane fell to the street, likely in pieces. He said crews spent nearly an hour removing loose shards of glass from the window after the accident, and it was fortunate no one on the ground was seriously hurt.

Mara said the window panes on the building are pretty thick and substantial, but "if you hit it just right, this is what happens."

The DOB has issued a violation to the construction company, The Martin Group, for failure to safeguard the site. 

The immediate area was closed to traffic while authorities investigated.  

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