Posted on 01/12/2013 7:58:59 AM PST by jimbo123
A heavyset woman caved through an Upper East Side sidewalk last night — dropping six feet into a huge hole where she was eventually pulled out by emergency crews using a crane-like rescue unit, authorities said.
The 31-year-old Queens woman was huddled up against the wall of Atomic Wings at the Blue Room Grill on the corner of East 60th Street and Second Avenue, seeking shelter from the rain while waiting for a bus, when the sidewalk below her gave way around 9:15 p.m., witnesses said.
“The woman was enormous. She had to be more than 300 pounds,” said Daniel Crumity, 44, of Queens, who watched in disbelief from a window inside the Blue Room. “The ground literally fell out from underneath her.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
When the ground gives way beneath ones feet :-)
“The woman was enormous. She had to be more than 300 pounds,” said Daniel Crumity
Ok, I can see how this make for an interesting news story, but I doubt a weight of 300 or even 400 pounds had much to do with the sidewalk collapsing. Otherwise, it would have collapsed when any 2 or 3 full grown adults had walked on it at the same time.
She was probably just the straw that broke the camel’s back here.
Yup, that’s right. If it collapsed under her weight, it could have collapsed when 2 people walked on it, or 1 person with a loaded shopping cart, or 4 kids, take your pick. A person large enough to make in an unreasonable load would not be able to walk under their own power in the first place.
“At what point does “heavyset” become “obese?”
I am thinking when the ground crumbles beneath you.. you are obese. If the ground just groans... you are heavyset and inching towards obese. Hope that clears that up. (LOL!)
Might it have anything to do with all that construction going on under 2nd Ave for the new subway line?
Perhaps, but a shopping cart or multiple people on that piece of concrete would distribute the weight (load) far more than a single fatty stepping on it. The PSI from the ball of her foot (a single footstep) would be huge.
Or at least to break their falls.
The muumuu is the most appropriately name piece of clothing ever invented.
It looks like this one was covered over with slate. Slate is awful brittle, and doesn't have a lot of tensile strength. New York City has incredibly tough building codes and incredibly corrupt inspectors.
It looks like this one was covered over with slate. Slate is awful brittle, and doesn't have a lot of tensile strength. New York City has incredibly tough building codes and incredibly corrupt inspectors.
300 may be big for a woman, but the fat comments here are stupid and misplaced. If a sidewalk can't hold 300 lbs, what happens to hot dog carts, people in electric wheelchairs, Segways, etc?
Yes, good point, the pressure would be greater. Still, I think that should fall within the acceptable safety tolerances of public sidewalks, unless she was really far over 300 lbs.
It was mean to make the woman’s weight a part of the story. It would have collapsed sooner or later because it was poor construction.
This is more herd group-think bully activism. Moochelle pinned the tail on the fat donkey and now all the amoral and stupid goats must bite it.
300lbs plus supported by 2,lets say spiked heels displaces much more pressure then say a 240lb adult and a 40lb child hand in hand or even a hot dog cart that may have a “foot” print of 4 feet by 8 feet. Granted there are some structual faults at work here, but come on...this is a funny story.I use to be “fat”.I took the time to watch what I ate and worked out alittle. I’m sure the next step will be to classify being overweight as a disease, Teacher?
We have to ban sidewalks.
And at what point does "obese" become "enormous"?
The load on a beam (this piece of material was acting like a beam) has a lot to do with how far the load is from the support. Two people will spread the load over a longer extent, meaning the “bending moment” will be smaller. When a bridge fails, it does so when a 40 ton semi rolls over it, not when a Prius does. Heavy loads uncover weak points.
I saw that, too. “Heayset”?? Over 300 lb? That is pure LOL. Is NY Post avoiding lawsuits by instructing reporters to not use plain old “FAT”?
Nope..she was “sexting” while waiting there, and well, “the earth moved..”
Bingo. Every time I go to that part of the East Side I am amazed that the subway is still under construction. I think it’s been going on for forty years—the greatest boondoggle of all time.
Of course, there was a big time gap between that last subway before this one and this one. I guess all the tribal memory of how to do a subway tunnel has been lost.
She is lucky she did not end up paralyzed in some way. That is what can happen when you fall through what you’re standing on into a hole. Why I never walk on grates or cellar doors. People wonder why I am not moving over and then they realize.
That sidewalk looked funny to me. A big piece of slate or something rather than concrete? I probably wouldn’t have realized it was hollow underneath either.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.