George Attwal
George Attwal was driving on the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge on Friday when the accident occurred in front of him. He took this photo from inside his car.
An M.T.A. construction truck struck an overhead road sign on the Queens-bound plaza of the Whitestone Bridge at 1:10 p.m. on Friday, causing the steel sign structure to come crashing down on all six lanes and injuring two people who were on the truck, according to M.T.A. Bridges and Tunnels. The accident, which did not injure other passengers, the agency said, forced the immediate closure of the bridge. Cars were being rerouted to the Throgs Neck or Robert F. Kennedy Bridges just before the onslaught of Friday afternoon traffic.
The boom truck was driven by Alpha Painting and Construction Company, a contractor for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired to paint the bridge’s Queens and Bronx towers, according to Judie Glave, a spokeswoman for the authority. Two men sustained minor injuries, one had a head injury and another had a fracture leg, and both were taken to New York Queens Hospital.
“Right now we have our maintenance crews out there, they have to cut the metal part of the sign and remove it,” Ms. Glave said. “The hope is to get it open by rush hour.” She admitted that might be difficult.
By early evening, crews for the M.T.A. were able to remove one piece of the fallen steel roadway sign on the southbound side of the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, but the biggest piece is still hanging over the divider on the northbound, Ms. Glave said. At best, she said, “we hope to open the three southbound lanes by 7, but that’s not written in stone. They are working as hard as they can to try and get open as soon as possible.”
George Attwal, a witness who said he was driving his Volkswagen Passat two cars behind the truck, described it as a pickup truck, with a cranelike operator in its bed, perhaps used like a cherry-picker to fix things, he said.
“I guess he forgot to lower it and it hit the roadway sign,” Mr. Attwal, 23, of Flushing, Queens, said in a telephone interview. “It collapsed right in front of us and two people fell off. They were standing in the back of the pickup. On person fell off and he rolled onto the road itself.”
Mr. Attwal, who was returning from a business call in New Jersey and headed to Long Island, said the accident “all happened within two seconds.” The car in front of him slammed on its brakes, and he hit his brakes hard to avoid a collision.
He estimated that the truck was going 15 to 20 miles an hour, but questioned why the two people would be outside on the bed of the truck.
Ms. Glave said she had no information about where the passengers of the truck were at the time. As soon as officials arrived on the scene, they directed Mr. Attwal to turn around and take the Throgs Neck Bridge.
Ms. Glave said that the last time a bridge in the vicinity was closed, it was February. The Throgs Neck Bridge was shut down in both directions for 90 minutes due to high winds that overturned an empty tractor-trailer.
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