What to Know
- A girl was leaving an apartment building with her family in Jackson Heights when a giant piece of wood fell from above
- The plywood hit the girl in the head, leaving her with a concussion and a large gash
- The girl's father says he warned a construction worker to stop moments before the wood came crashing down
A falling piece of wood plummeted onto a young girl in Queens on Friday morning, leaving her with a large gash on her head and a concussion, authorities and witnesses said.
The 8-year-old girl, named Tatiana, needed three staples to her head but is expected to be OK, according to her family.
She was being treated at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan after being hit by the falling wood at the apartment building near 35th Avenue and 83rd Street in Jackson Heights.
The large piece of plywood slipped from a rope as construction workers were lowering it from a fourth-floor fire escape around 9:30 a.m., authorities said.
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The family was leaving the building and heading to a park when the wood fell from the third floor and landed on the girl's head.
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"We were going to go have a family day at the park and we ended up at the hospital," Olga Piedrahita, the girl's mother, said.
Moments before, her father, Diego Devia, says a construction worker ignored his request that the workers stop while the family passed. Neighbors said the furious dad had to be restrained after the wood came crashing down on his daughter.
"As a father, he went ballistic," Piedrahita said. "As a mother, I just wanted to run to my daughter. She was on the floor gushing blood."
Video taken from a nearby apartment window shows emergency responders and residents surrounding the girl on a walkway in the building's courtyard. Neighbors said they heard the girl screaming and her 3-year-old brother crying.
The Department of Buildings told NBC 4 it is investigating the incident. The agency said the building, 83-09 35th Ave., has active permits for interior renovation work but that it has issued a full stop-work order at the property.
The DOB also said it has issued three violations at the property for failing to safeguard a construction site, performing construction work that does not conform to permitted plans, and for performing unpermitted construction work.
