5th Avenue Cat Clinic Roll-Down Gate Falls, Injures Woman and Child

Photo via Park Slope Lens

This is just awful.

Around 4:15PM yesterday a boy said to be around 5 years-old was walking hand-in-hand with his babysitter when a 16 foot-wide roll-down gate fell off of the 5th Avenue Cat Clinic and struck them.

Witnesses tell the Daily News that the gate suddenly broke free from the wall and came crashing down on the pair, hitting the woman on the head and pinning the boy's leg to the sidewalk.

 “The child’s leg was pancaked,” 55 year-old neighbor Christie Castellano told the Daily News. “We all ran over and there were some people trying to help.”

The boy's mother happened to be down the street, and came running to the scene. "The mother came running down the block. She saw her son and said ‘What's going on?’ and was very distressed,” another neighbor said. “It broke my heart."

Both the babysitter and the boy were taken to Lutheran Medical Center and listed in serious condition. According to The Daily News, "The City Department of Buildings Issued a violation for failure to maintain the building because welds holding the gate assembly in place failed."