12:09pm Saturday 4th July 2009
By Kathie Griffiths
Residents were trapped in their homes and a man badly injured early today after a balcony collapsed 15ft, blocking the only exit.
The incident happened at about 1am as the man, who has not been named, was standing on the stone balcony fixed into the wall of a Victorian building in Low Spring Road, Long Lee, Keighley.
The slab crashed to the ground with the man on it – leaving the iron railings still intact on the wall.
Paramedics took the victim, who was thought to have been helping a relative move in, to Airedale Hospital, suffering from back injuries.
His rescuers have since been told he has broken his coccyx and has suspected spinal injuries.
A fire crew from Keighley who were among the first emergency services to arrive at the scene called the specialist Urban Search and Rescue Team from Cleckheaton to shore up the collapsed stonework and clear a way out for other residents, who included a heavily pregnant woman, a two-year-old and a 77-year-old.
Watch manager Nick Padwick said: “That’s quite a drop when you’re not expecting it. The man was understandably shocked and complaining of back pains.
“We were worried that the other residents’ only way in and out of the flats was blocked. They would have had to scramble up and over, which would not have been safe, so that’s why we called in the specialist unit.”
The rescue unit used temporary wooden supports to keep what remained of the balcony in place. Yellow and black ‘do not cross’ tape was strung across it today.
The top of the stone steps leading up to the balcony and the way in to the homes had also crumbled away from the main wall.
Rescue Unit team leader Colin Brown said the ten structures put in place would hold at least ten tons each so would be safe until insurers organised repairs, but he warned the collapsed stonework and balcony on the other side could have “gone at any time”.
He said: “It’s sandstone and over the years it just wears away. What’s left is very thin now. The house is about 140 years old and it was usual in those times to slot huge stones like that into wall – but time has taken its toll.”
No-one was at home when the Telegraph & Argus visited the flats today.
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