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7 Shoppers Suffer Minor Injuries in Shelving Collapse at Bronx Store

By  Janon Fisher and Ben Fractenberg | April 7, 2014 7:06pm 

 About seven people were injured when several shelving units tipped over onto customers, fire officials said.
Bronx discount store accident
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CONCOURSE VILLAGE — Shelving units in a Bronx discount store collapsed on shoppers Monday afternoon, sending seven people — including three children — to the hospital with minor injuries, fire officials said.

Firefighters responded to a 911 call about 3:45 p.m. at the Discount Outlet at 950 Morris Ave. and found that unstable shelves fell in a domino effect, crushing people in the store.

"A number of the shelves including the stock collapsed creating a cascading effect. So we had three or four aisles of shelving that came down on the customers in the store," Deputy Fire Chief Anthony Montera said. "We had to remove a lot of the items by hand to the street in order to get underneath. There's some shelving down there we also had to remove that, very gingerly to make sure nobody was trapped under the debris."

Carlos Limardo, 63, who was standing outside with his wife when the incident happened, hurt his leg trying to help the victims.

"He was hurt, but he was still helping," his wife, Lucy Tirado, 60, said.

"It just collapsed on everybody that was walking through the aisles," she said. "It was horrible."

She said she saw three children being carried out by firefighters.

"I saw a lady's hand [sticking out of the debris] asking for help," Tirado said. "And the children were crying."

Neighbors said that conditions in the store were very cramped between the aisles and the shelves were overloaded with merchandise.

"They should have closed the store down," Tirado said.