MTA Bus Hits Scaffolding In Chelsea After Bird Flies On Board
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A bird on a bus ride is being blamed for a crash in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on Tuesday morning.
The driver, who was caught off guard, collided with a sidewalk shed, CBS2's Natalie Duddridge reported.
A Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus smashed into the scaffolding at 14th Street and Eighth Avenue at around 7:30 a.m., sending steel beams crashing down.
A union official told CBS2's Duddridge a pigeon got on board and was flying around, distracting the driver.
"It's really hard to believe a bird come flying out, but all of a sudden we hear this big boom," construction worker Freddy Villcres said. "So we turn around, we see the bus hitting the sidewalk bridge. We were worried about pedestrians walking in heavy weather. It's very dangerous for people walking underneath those."
One almost did. If you look at the video closely you can see a pedestrian begin to walk beneath the sidewalk shed when the bus hits and then dodges out of the way.
No one was hurt on the street or inside the bus, where there were at least two people, a passenger and the bus driver, who officials say must have been thrown off when the bird flew in.
"It's kind of crazy. Hopefully, the bus driver had control enough -- obviously he didn't -- but luckily no one got hurt," another person said.
The scaffolding was already being dismantled by workers when it was hit by the bus, so when representatives from the Department of Buildings arrived they advised the rest be taken down immediately for safety reasons.
"Buses stop there every day," builder Terry O'Brien said. "They're constantly coming up to that curb, so if something was protruding out I'm assuming it would have gotten hit before this."
Tuesday's snow had started to pick up at the same time and the streets were slick. But for now, the bird is getting most of the blame.
"He was probably cold and said, 'Let me go inside. It's raining,'" one person said.