I-Team: New numbers show surprising scope of Boston's hollow sidewalk problem
BOSTON - Eighty-year-old Martin Hannon has recovered from the injuries, but he can't shake the memory of the frightening fall he took in Boston almost a year ago.
"I heard my mom yell out my dad's name, like kind of scream," said his son, also named Martin.
"I whipped around, and there's my dad on the ground and he's kind of tangled, and one leg was in the hole," he said.
His father said it was so shocking, at first he didn't know what had happened. "I was in the hole, I knew that," he said.
His family shared photographs with the WBZ I-Team. They show Hannon sprawled out on the sidewalk next to an asphalt-coated covering that had come loose.
Emergency crews treated him and brought him to the hospital with a chunk of skin scraped off the front of his ankle and bruises on his face.
His wife said she heard his head hit the sidewalk. "I didn't hear that," said Hannon. "That's a good thing. 'Thump, thump, thump.' You don't want to hear that!"
The spot where it had happened on West Street near Boston Common is on one of the City's countless hollow sidewalks.
"I looked into this hole, and it was massive," said his son.
Signs on the side of a nearby building says "HOLLOW SIDEWALK, NO VEHICLES". There are similar warnings posted in various locations around the city.
It's an issue the I-Team has been looking into since a woman fell through a sidewalk leaving her church on Blue Hill Avenue last summer. A few months later, city engineers hired a radar operator to find out how much of Boston's underground is empty beneath the surface.
The I-Team has learned that out of 60 properties scanned, 73% had hollow sidewalks.
A check of six streets revealed 44 hollow spaces underneath.
City officials plan to take this data into consideration for future building developments in those places, and they plan to roll out the radar again ahead of projects in different areas.
"Safety-wise it's a big challenge," said Jim Lambrechts, who's an engineer at Wentworth Institute of Technology.
He said hollow sidewalks date back to the early 1900s, and were designed to deliver coal.
"Somebody down below would be shoveling the coal in, shoveling the cinders out, but it was an easy way to get materials into the building," said Lambrechts.
"I don't want another family to go through this," said Hannon's son.
He shared a letter Boston's legal team sent his father, denying a claim he filed after his fall.
"The area in question was reasonably safe," said the letter. It also said the City "…found insufficient evidence that the City had…notice of the alleged hazard prior…"
Legal experts say prior knowledge that a danger exists, is key for a municipality to be held responsible.
"A lot of people could have slipped into one quite easily," said Hannon. "It was just my lucky day, stepped on the wrong spot."
His family wants the public to know about the problem, and wants Boston to do a better job of keeping all holes in its walkways sealed, and all sidewalks safe.