MANHATTAN — Two workers were critically injured when part of the ceiling collapsed on the second floor of a Madison Avenue building, witnesses and officials said.
The men, whose names and ages were not immediately released, were on a scaffolding and trying to remove part of the ceiling inside 317 Madison Ave., near East 42nd Street and Grand Central Terminal, about 10:15 a.m., when it fell on them, an FDNY spokeswoman and a witness said.
"It fell on them, pushed them from 12-feet high. They fell down and the rest of the debris fell on them," said a witness who declined to give his name.
The leg bone of one of the injured workers could be seen protruding through his pants as he was wheeled out to an ambulance, the witness said.
"Hopefully the two workers who were hurt today will make a full recovery and be back home with their families very soon," Richard Weiss, spokesman for the Laborers Local 79, said.
Their injuries were considered life-threatening and they were taken to Bellevue Hospital, the spokeswoman said.
The Department of Buildings was investigating, a spokesman said, and OSHA representatives arrived to survey the scene of the incident as well.
Tishman Construction, the company overseeing the demolition, declined to say how the workers were injured, but denied the ceiling had collapsed, spokesman John Gallagher said. He described the worker injuries as minor.
