(Update at 11:25 a.m.) An office worker has been hurt from a fall behind 950 N. Glebe Road in Ballston.
The incident happened just before 10:00 a.m. The worker was walking to a meeting when he stepped on a steel grate, adjacent to the sidewalk, which collapsed. He fell about 15 feet into a ventilation shaft, landing on a concrete ledge. Scanner reports suggest he suffered head and rib injuries.
A technical rescue team from the Arlington County Fire Department used a Stokes basket to lift the man from the shaft. With dried blood visible on his face, he was loaded onto a stretcher and taken to the trauma center at Inova Fairfax Hospital around 11:00 a.m.
The man, a white male in his 50s, was conscious, alert and breathing, fire department spokesman Capt. Bill Shelton said. There’s no official word on the nature of his injuries.
In his experience, Shelton said, incidents like this one, in which a grate collapses under the feet of a pedestrian, are uncommon.
Two lanes of N. Glebe Road were blocked by the emergency response. A county building engineer has responded to the scene to inspect the grate.