Exclusive Video: Man Crashes Through Skylight At Rooftop Party In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A man took a terrifying fall through a skylight at a rooftop party in Brooklyn, tumbling five stories down around 1 a.m. Sunday.
The sounds on surveillance video from nearby reveal the nightmarish plunge. Police say a 25-year-old man, partying on the rooftop of an apartment building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, fell through the glass of a skylight and plummeted five stories down a shaft.
The man broke both of his legs after he climbed onto the thin glass, stood there, and crashed onto the concrete below.
Mariely Otero heard the fall, checked her surveillance video, and peeked outside her apartment before calling 911.
She spoke exclusively to CBS2's Jessica Borg, and says she called for help "as soon as I heard the whole commotion and heard someone saying 'oh he fell down'."
"Then I heard a female voice saying 'oh um, call 911, call the ambulance'," she said.
The then remembered seeing scores of young people running down the stairs out of the building on Malcolm X Boulevard.
Residents suspect party-goers had been walking from building to building on the connected rooftop, even though doing so isn't allowed because of safety concerns.
According to the city's Department of Buildings website, the building has no prior violations for being an unstable structure.
Resident Elliot Kelly -- an EMT -- says rooftop parties are rare, and that the young man took an unnecessary risk with his life.
"When you have that type of fall, most of the time you don't survive," he tells CBS2.
Otero said she hopes the incident serves as a warning to folks who might be considering other parties on her roof during the summer.