Woman Hospitalized After Being Swallowed by Sinkhole in Brooklyn

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The New York Sun

A woman taking care of her two grandsons stepped out of her minivan and into a 4-foot-deep sinkhole in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn yesterday afternoon, police and fire officials said.

Faye Brod, 64, was bringing back groceries to her car at about 5:40 p.m. when she fell into a 5-foot-by-2-foot hole that opened up as she stepped on it, fire officials said. Moisture had eroded the soil under the sidewalk, leaving no support for the pavement, according to the officials, who said they were not worried about other sinkholes in the area.

Using a hook and rubber meshing, firefighters removed an 80-pound piece of concrete that Ms. Brod became wedged under, a firefighter, Jim McNulty, said. Rescuers stood on a 20-foot ladder that was laid flat on the ground to spread out their weight. She was sitting in the bottom of the hole with her groceries and pocketbook, and the slab weighing down on her.

Ms. Brod said she was in pain and was taken to King’s County Hospital about 20 minutes after she fell, officials said. Her daughter-in-law in Marlboro, N.J., where Ms. Brod lives, said she was undergoing several tests at the hospital last night.

When the sidewalk opened up, Ms. Brod’s grandsons, Zachary, 5, and Ethan, 3, were afraid and stood by a nearby fence, holding hands, a family babysitter, Jennifer Croteau, 17, said. Ms. Brod commutes from New Jersey to take care of them every Monday, Ms. Croteau said. She was about to drop them off at a nearby dance studio where the children’s mother, Jodi, works.

“It’s crazy,” a local resident, Joanne Sabine, said. “There were people around like there was a baby in a well.”


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