Brooklyn girl falls 30 feet through skylight, survives with broken arm and leg

Friday, 15 May 2009

An eight-year-old Brooklyn girl fell 30 feet through a skylight near a rooftop playground yesterday afternoon, breaking an arm and a leg, the New York Post reports.

The girl, whose name was not released, was walking towards a staircase to retrieve a ball that had fallen to the street when the skylight she was walking on gave way. She fell into her school's multipurpose room, where a lesson was in progress. No one else was injured. The girl was taken to the Lutheran Medical Center.

New York personal injury lawyers know that this was a lucky fall. A 30-foot drop has the potential to cause far more severe injuries, and could even be fatal.

The girl's school, the Beis Ruchel D'Satmar Girls School, shares its space with Aters Chaya, a popular wedding hall, according to The Yeshiva World. The skylight allows for couples to marry in accordance with the rules of a traditional Jewish wedding, which require "open sky directly above" the ceremony.

The skylight is a critical feature of this facility - its removal would be problematic. Yet its placement near the school's rooftop playground clearly poses a problem. Frankly, the school is lucky it hasn't had any prior accidents involving this skylight.

An easy, simple solution: construct a low fence around the perimeter of the skylight. This would keep children from walking across it but allow adults easy access for weddings or any other occasion.

The school should fix this situation quickly. Though it has been lucky so far, counting on continued luck is a very poor practice.

[ New York Post & The Yeshiva World ]