"He's crying, his head is bleeding in the back, blood, and he has a cast on, but I don't want to cry," said Edna St. Thomas, the victim's mother.
How could a mother not cry, to hear one of her five children was almost crushed by a wall of bricks.
"He has a broken leg and a concussion," said Aisha St. Thomas, the victim's sister.
23-year-old Dworin St. Thomas was on his way home from work around 4 Thursday afternoon when the façade of the GameStop store rained down white bricks onto 92nd Street near Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst.
"I heard a large thud, it sounded as if a car had hit the building and it was shaking, a little earthquakish," said Mark Bresky, an eyewitness.
"I saw a lady with a baby and she dodged all the debris," said Steven Cevallos, an eyewitness.
His family knew about the collapse, but at first, didn't know it was St. Thomas.
"They called me and said there was an accident, and I saw the video on the news, they said a man was injured," Aisha St. Thomas said.
"Most of the stuff fell on his legs, I was going to try to, I didn't want to touch him, there was a lot of blood everywhere, there was a pretty big brick on his right arm," Cevallos said.
Nearby offices were temporarily evacuated and Buildings Department inspectors spent time on the roof trying to determine the cause.
"There are some cracks on the wall that will be evaluated," said Asst. Chief Ronald Spadafora, FDNY.
A minivan was smashed during the collapse, but St. Thomas was the only person injured.
"It's just a random thing, so we're all just trying to stay strong and support him," Aisha St. Thomas said.
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