An 8-year-old boy fell through the roof of an abandoned glass building on Sigtún in Reykjavík on Tuesday, which used to house a Blómaval flower shop. The boy suffered a broken arm, a fractured pelvis and is still under investigation at the hospital.
“It is a miracle that the child is alive,” the boy’s grandfather, Hilmar Andrésson, told Morgunbladid. The boy had been playing with his friends and they had climbed to the roof of the abandoned building, which is made of glass.
“They were balancing on the ridge, which is six to seven centimeters wide, when my grandson lost his footing and slid down. The glass couldn’t hold him and he fell five meters down to the stone tiles below,” Andrésson said.
According to Andrésson, the building has electricity and heating although there have not been any operations inside it since April. He said drug abusers have used the building as shelter.
Andrésson criticizes city authorities for not having made the construction company Eykt, which owns the building, erect fences around it or make other precautions to prevent accidents like these. “I contacted Reykjavík City and was told that we had to take better care of our children.”
Eykt CEO Gunnar Valur Gíslason apologized for the accident and added it is difficult to prevent children from playing where they are not supposed to be. Gíslason said Eykt had planned to erect a fence around the house and will now speed up the procedure.
