Check out my video of the crane collapse from across the street of the accident

David M. Reisner
360 Digital Producer

It wasn’t the way I expected to wake up. I was up rather late the night before… so I could have used hitting the ‘snooze’ button a few times. But the alarm went off, I got up, and began to hear the howl of fire-engines and the wail of ambulance sirens.

This happens a lot in NYC, as emergency vehicles barrel down these wide avenues to get to fires and emergencies all throughout the city. What made this different was that the sirens didn’t trail off... like the usually do. They grew louder. But it was the monotonous ‘thump-thump-thump’ of a helicopter… hovering… as if right over my apartment… that really woke me up. I knew it must be close, and I knew ‘this’ must be big.

I shot out of bed – flicked on the TV – and saw a local station reporting the collapse. I didn’t even need to see the street sign, or the read the information in the breaking news banner – I knew exactly where this was… Just 3 blocks away.

I grabbed my keys, my phone, my camera, and rushed out to the scene. Neighbors and people who work in the area were already spilling out into the streets to stare at the accident that lay across 1st Avenue.

Some say they heard a loud noise; a ‘snap’ – like a giant toothpick – One of our iReporters said the crane collapse sounded like a "prolonged car accident."

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