New Yorkers will do anything to help their fellow man – and here’s the video to prove it.
After a scaffold collapsed Sunday in lower Manhattan, trapping two people underneath, dozens of New Yorkers pitched in to pull off hunks of debris and save them.
Jonathan Mejia, a vendor at Artists and Fleas said he saw the scaffolding burst at Prince and Broadway from where he was standing.
“I saw it fall, I heard a banging, wood falling. It was really loud,” he told The Post.
Like others on the scene, Mejia said he didn’t think twice about running over to help.
“There was someone underneath that needed my help. We started moving things away. There were maybe 15 of us,” he said.
The Big Apple team lifted long beams and metal sheets, threw them to the side, and managed to free the woman within a couple of minutes, he said.
“I saw that her head was cracked open and her leg was folded, almost out of place. She looked at us and said, ‘What happened?’, he said.
FDNY Deputy Chief Joseph Lonino said the accident happened at 11:40 a.m. when a strong gust of wind blew over the shed that was propping up the scaffold.
“At this corner, it’s very, very breezy,” said Lonino from the scene, where he said three pedestrians were hit by falling debris and two were trapped inside.
“It was a very high shed, the windows are approximately 20 feet tall. The scaffold is about 20 feet high. The exterior plywood panels acted as kind of a sail, and it blew the shed over.”
Lonino said there were a total of five injuries – all minor.
“They were transported to Bellevue Hospital, conscious and alert,” he said.
The name of the woman who New Yorkers freed has not been released.
Bobby Canty, 57, said he was removing garbage bags from the area and noticed the shed was already rickety.
“It wasn’t good in the ground. It was up on a slant for about 20 minutes before it fell. I saw it and I took pictures to send to my boss. It was good yesterday. Then I walked away.”
Canty said he barely missed getting hit by falling debris.
“God was on my side,” he said.
Meanwhile, the high winds blowing through the boroughs did some other damage Sunday:
A new Honda parked at the corner of East 2nd Street between Avenue S and Avenue T in Midwood was squashed when a gigantic tree toppled over at 8:30 a.m. and fell on its roof.
A photo shows the car’s front window shattered into thousands of pieces. Luckily, no one was in the car, authorities said.
In the Bronx, another tree blew over at 1:25 and crashed into some cars parked at Watson and Evergreen Avenues.
Accuweather meteorologist Tom Kines said the winds were clocked between 40 and 50 mph and an advisory was issued for people to stay indoors.
“These are very strong gusts, they can certain cause damage,” he said. He said the winds were behind the cold front that edged in early this morning, which caused the temperature to plummet about 10-degrees from about 60-degrees within minutes.