Boston - Unusual Technical Rescue/Recovery

[DWC295 70]

A young woman fell 4 or more stories through a skylight in a commercial structure in South Boston last night. Victim's friends unable to confirm which skylight she fell through and shaft could not be reach from interior of building. BFD had to open up walls in attempts to find patient Patient was located and pronounced on the scene.

Boston Herald Link

Boston.com Link

[x635 4,066]

Sad, but unique nonethless. It will be interesting when the whole story is hopefully publihed in Fire Engineering.

To note, Yonkers FD USAR and Collapse Rescue has some very high tech resources to locate victims, and remove them in a situation like this.

[PFDRes47cue 653]

I might be missing something but, how does someone fall through the roof and that not be noticeable from the roof. By this I mean if they went onto the roof wouldn't they be able to see where she fell?

[ny10570 745]

Its a blind shaft. I'm sure there's several on that roof and even with a good flashlight clearly identifying whats on the bottom may be tough. It could have been as simple as they were walking along the roof and suddenly she disappeared down one of these holes or, after she fell they lost track of which shaft during the panic to get help.

[SOlsonBFDL14 35]

Blind shaft, several interconnected buildings, witnesses that weren't very helpful. It all adds up. Eventually the Tech Rescue team ended up breaching a wall to access the correct shaft & gain access to the woman.