Philadelphia collapse survivor: ‘I started running for my life’

On the day officials announced they would assemble a grand jury to investigate a building collapse in Philadelphia, one survivor recalled the disaster that killed six people.

Felicia Hill, a mother of seven, was working in the Salvation Army thrift store downtown Wednesday when a four-story building being demolished next door collapsed into the store.

“I felt this shaking, like an earthquake, and then I heard a gust of wind come in and I seen just the wall fall and the dust cloud,” Hill told WPVI-TV, then broke down to cry. “I started running for my life, and the only thing I could think about was my children.”

At one point after the bricks started falling, she looked at her new coworker, Kimberly Finnegan, who had started her first day of work at the store.

“And then the wall came down, and I didn’t see her anymore,” Hill told the Associated Press, adding that after the collapse, she heard a coworker calling, “Somebody, help me, please. Somebody help.”

The collapse has already spurred lawsuits by survivors, the arrest of the crane operator knocking down the building, and -- as of Monday -- a grand jury to “completely and appropriately investigate last Wednesday’s tragedy,” Philadelphia district attorney Seth Williams said in a statement.

The crane operator, Sean Benschop, 42, faces six counts of involuntary manslaughter, 13 counts of reckless endangerment and one count of risking a catastrophe. Officials have said he tested positive for marijuana after the collapse.

Philadelphia officials have already begun reviewing the city’s policies on demolition as one of the survivors’ attorneys continued to blast contractor Griffin Campbell’s construction company, which handled the demolition.

“It is clear they did not have a clue what they were doing,” attorney Robert Mongeluzzi said, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “They had a building without steel. It should have been done by hand.”

On Monday, investigators also visited Campbell’s home in North Philadelphia to conduct a search and were seen leaving with evidence.

Campbell and the building’s owner, Richard Basciano, have not commented about the collapse.

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