A part-time Sanitation worker yesterday suffered a gash cut to his head after falling 12 feet through an access grate outside an Inwood depot.
Eric Pagan, 23, of the Bronx, was taken to Harlem Hospital following the harrowing accident in front of the Bronx 7 Garage at West 215 St. and Tenth Avenue, said a Sanitation spokesman. He is currently in stable condition with his mother by his side, the spokesman added.
“He goes straight down and the grate hit him on the way. I was in shock. I looked down there and I could see he was leaking blood all over,” said co-worker Peter Lopez. “Eric was standing there for a minute, shoveling. He stepped on the edge of the grate and it just flipped over on him.”
Pagan had called in as an emergency show shoveler yesterday morning and was assigned to clear sidewalks and crosswalks, said Lopez.
The crew returned early to the depot, and the supervisor told them to finish the shift by shoveling the depot’s sidewalk, Lopez added.
At about 4:20 p.m., both Pagan and Lopez were standing on separate grates, about 5 inches from the ground, when Pagan’s flipped over.
“You could tell the grates were off balance. The ones I was standing on was off balance too,” Lopez said.
Pagan tumbled about 12 feet, with the grate crashing down on his head.
After being hit, he knelt down on the ground and started complaining that he was freezing, nauseous and claustrophobic.
Lopez yelled down, “You OK? You OK?” but Pagan, leaning against a wall, didn’t answer.
Another worker descended into the hole and put a towel on his wound.
About 15 minutes later an EMS crew arrived and removed him on a stretcher.
“Everyone just ran over and told him to stay there and not to move,” Lopez said. “It was our last job of the day. They sent us out on this last street because it was too early to end our shift.”