HARTFORD, Conn., Sept. 11 (UPI) — The third floor balcony of a Connecticut house near Trinity College collapsed Saturday night injuring 28 people.
The deck near the Hartford campus collapsed during a party as students were drinking on all three decks at the home, Hartford police said. The worst injury was a broken bone.
The house is owned by the college but managed by a private company, Fox 61 reported.
The city’s mayor issued a statement posted on Twitter by Deputy Police Chief Brian J. Foley. Mayor Luke Bronin said the city was lucky there were no fatalities or critical injuries.
The house is home to five people. The deterioration of the decks became obvious after the collapse, Foley said.
“The decks seem pretty old and somewhat deteriorated now that they’re detached from the house and we can see some of the deterioration,” he said. “The collapse was pretty significant. Those are pretty weighty decks that fell down and we’re very lucky there wasn’t worse injuries from this sort of thing. Those are heavy old decks that came down.”
Foley posted pictures of the collapsed decks on his Twitter page. When the third deck collapsed it fell on to the second and then both fell on to the ground floor deck.
Bronin said when he saw where the accident occurred on Broad Street he thought, “Thank God this wasn’t worse and Thank God no lives were lost.” He commended the first responders to the scene.
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions,” Bronin said. “I don’t know exactly what caused the deck to fall tonight but there are a lot of older properties and you gotta make sure you’re not putting too much stress on them.”
The 28 students were transported to five area hospitals.
