Lucky escape for workers in huge scaffolding collapse

ABOUT 200 workmen had a “miraculous” escape yesterday after 15 floors of scaffolding collapsed “like a pack of cards” at a Jurys hotel building site.

Desperate workers apparently leaped through windows at the half-constructed Jurys Inn Hotel in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Britain, as tons of metal and wood began crashing down.

Emergency services dragged three people from the wreckage within minutes of the collapse in a busy commercial area at around 12.30pm.

They were taken to hospital by air ambulance and were being treated for “serious” injuries, although their condition is not thought to be life-threatening. Police said everyone at the scene had been accounted for.

A Fire Service spokesperson said: “It’s very lucky that the first crews on the scene were able to get to the casualties. It’s a lucky escape - almost miraculous.”

Neil Parkinson, chief pilot for Warwickshire and Northamptonshire air ambulance, said when they arrived there had been “four storeys of debris and planks of wood”, with people trapped on top of it and within it.

He said: “One of our paramedics was reporting that one of the guys working on the scaffolding managed to dive through a window into the building. There are some tremendous stories of luck and good fortune.”

Witnesses reported hearing a “groaning” just before the collapse.

Nick Reynolds, a receptionist working in a nearby office, said: “It came down like a pack of cards.”

The Jurys Inn Hotel, a three-star property with 279 bedrooms, had been due to open in June. A spokesperson for Jurys Doyle Hotels, the Irish firm which owns the property, said around 200 workers would have been working at the site and on another hotel that is being constructed nearby.

It appears many of the workmen escaped because they were on their lunch break at the time of the incident.