NEW YORK (Reuters) – A would-be suicide jumper in New York was alive on Monday after leaping from a ninth-floor window but landing in a giant heap of garbage uncollected since the city’s massive snowstorm a week ago.
Vangelis Kapatos, 26, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition after jumping from his apartment on West 45th Street on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.
Sanitation workers have not collected trash since the December 26 storm dumped more than a foot and a half of snow on the city. Mounds of garbage several feet high line many sidewalks.
“Everybody is complaining that the trash hasn’t been picked up,” Kapatos’ aunt said yesterday. “But me, I’m thankful that it was never picked up.”
Police said the trash bags below broke Kapatos’ fall and that he left no suicide note before jumping.
The Department of Sanitation, which was only resuming garbage collecting yesterday, estimates 77,000 tons of trash have been left uncollected since the storm.
