Post date: Jan 03, 2011 8:8:47 PM
Unattended trash left since the Dec 26th snowstorm paralyzed New York City saves a jumper attempting to commit suicide with soft landing.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (JANUARY 2, 2011) NBC - A would-be suicide jumper in New York was alive on Monday (January 3) 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 (January 2) afternoon, authorities said.Sanitation workers have not collected trash since the Dec. 26 storm dumped more than a foot and a half of snow on the city. Mounds of garbage several feet high line many sidewalks.
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 on Monday, estimates 77,000 tons of trash have been left uncollected since the storm.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he expects workers to be caught up with trash collection by Friday.
Bloomberg explained that it would take several days to for crews to handles all the rubbish but added it should be no longer than three to four days.
Katharina Capatos, who spells her surname differently from her nephew, told Reuters he was severely depressed and had spent a month in the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital before being released last week.
He also was worried about the possibility of being evicted from his $572-a-month rent-stabilized apartment, she said.
Kapatos' eviction hearing was scheduled to proceed on Tuesday, according to the New York City Housing Court.