Kidney Friends

'Like a miniature earthquake,' neighbour calls Windsor garage collapse

Quote:A downtown parking garage was rendered into rubble Thursday morning when the two-storey structure collapsed, sending one man to hospital and crushing several cars.

Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis declared a state of emergency to allow the city to access provincial emergency response teams that will delve into the wreckage to help search for any trapped victims.

John Lee, acting assistant chief fire prevention officer, said officials are unsure whether anyone else is buried under the heaps of concrete and metal in the lot behind 1368 Ouellette Avenue, home to Windsor West MPP Sandra Pupatello's constituency office and Thai Silk restaurant, along with a number of other tenants on the upper floors.

Paramedics used a pulley to lift one male victim from the gaping hole. He was transported to hospital with unknown injuries, wearing a neck brace and grimacing in apparent pain. Police said he suffered non life-threatening injuries.

Witnesses said the man was operating a boom truck near the Dufferin Street entrance around 10:30 a.m. in preparation to carry out maintenance work on the building — possibly painting or washing windows — when the pavement gave way.

"He went to go into the parking lot there and he got in the middle and the whole thing just went under," said Jodine Vincent, who was sitting on her porch across from the parking lot. "I said to my son, 'Oh my god, the ground just dropped.'"

Several of the eight vehicles parked on the ground level of the structure were tilting dangerously into the hole, some resting precariously on yellow steel pillars. As the hours went by, the hole slowly grew wider and the cars slid further in.

Emergency services officers evacuated the Ambassador apartment building at 1382 Ouellette Ave. as a precaution. Residents were shuttled to the St. Clair Centre for the Arts via Transit Windsor buses until accommodations could be arranged.

Bent and twisted rebar jutted out from the steel supports, and the jagged edges of the grey concrete and black asphalt opened to the underground level, where an unknown number of vehicles were also parked.

Richard Jones lives next door to the parking lot and was inside his house when he heard the commotion. "It was like two big semi trucks hitting each other," he said. "We heard the thud and the shake and the trembles and we came out and then we seen that it collapsed. It was like a miniature earthquake or something. The whole house, the windows and everything shook."

Steve Serecin, who works on the second floor of the building where the structure collapsed, grabbed his first aid kit as soon as he looked out the window and saw the sinkhole. When he reached the boom truck, he saw one of the building owners already on the scene, assisting the truck operator. "He was trying to help him out of the basket, because I think he was kind of hanging from it, dangling from the safety cord," Serecin said.

"It looked like something straight out of a Hollywood movie," said Mike Brennan of the Kidney Foundation, which has an office on the third floor of the building. "It was terrifying."

A number of doctor's offices are also located in the building, including that of an oral surgeon. Some surgeries were taking place in the midst of all the commotion outside.

Provincial Emergency Response Teams from Toronto and Bolton were dispatched to Windsor with search dogs, and Windsor police dispatched a robot with cameras to move through the underground structure to look for victims. The Urban Search and Rescue Team was also sent to the scene to shore up the structure with specialized equipment.

"I think right now our focus is to ensure that we get in there and make sure that there's nobody in there, but obviously this is a very significant event and we just hope that we're able to have a positive resolution to this issue," said Mayor Eddie Francis.

Police, fire and city spokespeople have not been able to confirm the cause of the collapse. Some witnesses speculated that Windsor's five-day heat wave may have contributed to the accident, while others suggested the machinery was simply too heavy for the structure.

A municipal building inspector said he wasn't willing to speculate on the cause of the accident. "I really can't say. There's a lot of things that we see that lead us to believe that this may be simply an accident, but we won't know until everything's done," he said.

He added that he believed the boom truck had been on the premises before Thursday's accident, without incident. "Maybe he was here when there were no other cars. I don't know. The parking lot was fairly full. Whatever happened, obviously the floor up there couldn't take the load that was on it."

As of about 3 p.m., everyone who works in the building or was visiting was accounted for, police said.

thankfully no one was severly hurt or killed.

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