Animation of New York construction accident that brought a 23 million dollar cash recovery.

Plaintiff arrived at work at 7 AM on September 1, 2000. His job that day was to remove pins from a wall, place them in a “nail” box he was wearing, and walk the filled box across planks placed high above the construction site floor.

On his fourth walk across the planks, there was a loud snap, and the plaintiff fell through space, trying all the while to “fall toward the grass.” On the way down the plaintiff felt that he was likely to suffer only a sprained ankle, but “got the shock of his life” when he felt “a bang’ in his tailbone. At first, he felt nothing. After short time he realized that there was “something in me, and I’m stuck in a hole, and I need help.” Plaintiff yelled for help, but no one heard him- finally he had the presence of mind to dig his cell phone out of his nail box and call 911.

When the first responders arrived they saw that the plaintiff had been impaled by a rod of reinforced iron and steel which pierced his rectum and damaged his spinal cord, resulting in paraplegia. It took 10 firemen working in tandem to slide him off the rebar; all the while the plaintiff was conscious and able to see the bar sticking out between his legs.