An hour and a half after a building collapsed into a construction site in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn on Wednesday, a man walked through a crowd of onlookers and arrived at a strip of yellow police tape. He tried to push his way into the scene, but emergency workers blocked his path. It was unsafe to enter, they said.
The man, who did not give his name, paused. His wife was trapped inside, he said. And she was six months pregnant.
He walked across Flatbush Avenue, where he stood on the sidewalk surrounded by police officers, journalists and Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate. After nearly an hour of waiting, a journalist relayed the news at 6:30 p.m.: The man’s wife had been found, alive.
The man broke down crying and was embraced by Mr. Williams.
“She is still alive,” the man said in an impromptu news conference near the scene. “I am very happy.”
More than a dozen firefighters worked to lift the woman, who was strapped to an orange stretcher, out of the pit. She was carried to the open doors of an ambulance. Her husband stood by her stretcher for a few minutes before she was loaded into the back. The man climbed into the cab of the ambulance, which took them to a hospital.
The woman is in stable condition, said Farah Louis, the councilwoman who represents the neighborhood. The rescued woman is from Guinea, and she lived in the building with other residents who were immigrants, including from West Africa, Ms. Louis said.
“These folks are our neighbors,” Ms. Louis said. “They’re our friends. That’s why the community is so heartbroken.”
The collapse has killed at least eight people and injured at least 17. In addition to the pregnant woman, other people were removed from the rubble in stretchers, including a small child.
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