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Sun Quan
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'That's a miracle if I've ever seen one. He should be a goner,' witness says
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated <abbr style="display: inline;" class="dtstamp updated" title="2010-09-01T14:12:24">9/1/2010 10:12:24 AM ET</abbr>
NEW YORK — A New York City man who plunged 39 stories from the rooftop of an apartment building has survived after crashing onto a parked car.
Witnesses and police said 22-year-old Thomas Magill jumped from the high-rise at West 63rd Street on Tuesday and landed in the backseat area of a Dodge Charger.
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He broke both his legs and police said he was in critical condition. The car's owner, Guy McCormack, of Old Bridge, N.J., told the New York Daily News he was convinced that rosary beads he kept inside the Dodge saved Magill's life. "Here's what saved him!" McCormack said as he took them from the car.
'Pray for my son'
Magill's father, Thomas Magill Sr., asked friends to "pray for my son" in a text message, the Daily News said. "He's stable now. We can only hope he'll be okay," Magill Sr. said, according to the Daily News. Police were investigating why Magill jumped from the building.
"He came down feet first at like 100 mph," witness Andrew Petrocelli, 47, a maintenance worker, told the Daily News. "That's a miracle if I've ever seen one. He should be a goner. It was like that movie 'Unbreakable.' That was this guy: unbreakable."
"He had his hands up in the air, like flailing. Just when he's about to land, there was a boom and glass flying all over," he added. "The car saved his life. He landed in there like a stunt man. It was amazing."
The Daily News quoted a neighbor of Magill, Francine Denardo, as saying he was "an amazing kid." "He seemed so happy. He seemed so joyful," she said.
Magill is not the only New Yorker to survive a high-rise fall. Window washer Alcides Moreno fell 47 stories from the roof of a skyscraper in December 2007, and lived.
He was seriously injured and in a coma for weeks after the 500-foot fall, but the Daily News reported in January 2008 that he had been discharged from the hospital and was awake and talking. Moreno had been washing windows with his brother Edgar Moreno when the cables on their aluminum swing failed. His brother, 30, was killed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
