DISPLACED residents of a more-than-30-year-old apartment building in a Torrington Park housing scheme in St Andrew should be getting wooden steps soon that will enable them to re-enter their premises, after a staircase which gave way and injured a resident on Sunday is replaced.

The staircase leading from the second to the third floor at the front of the building is now resting on the bottom step leading to the ground floor, surrounded by large chunks of rubble.

Contractor Dockswell Construction, whose representative was at the location on Tuesday morning, told the Jamaica Observer that the company was at the site to conduct an evaluation of the area to determine how best to address the precarious situation.

Project manager at Dockswell Neville Dixon said the plan is to construct a wooden staircase, and at the same time carefully remove the broken staircase, which will be an intricate process to ensure there is no further breakaway.

“The carpenter will come in later today [Tuesday] to do measurements to determine all the material that will be needed to build the stairs. We will also try to get a backhoe tomorrow, to start easing the pressure off the lower staircase.

“We don’t want to put any further stress on what is there, so we have to be very careful. I know speed is at hand but we have to be careful that we don’t make the situation worse, in terms of shaking what is not supposed to be shaken. But we have been mobilised. We have to get the resources, labour, equipment that is required,” Dixon said.

The project manager said his company will also be putting in measures to stabilise the compromised structure out of concern for the safety of the residents, who have not only placed a wooden ladder on top of the collapsed step to get to their apartments, but who must also walk under the bottom stairs to get to other locations at the complex.

“We will start working on that even before everything is ironed out for the benefit of the people. We’re going to put in some metal props under the ground stairwell so it can keep it up, so there is no further falling down of the stairwell with the load that is already on it. So that’s another temporary thing we want to get done immediately,” he said, adding that the collapsed staircase is a precursor to what can happen at any time with the remaining staircases on the aged building.

Dockswell Construction, which has been selected to carry out the major infrastructural repairs to the deteriorating building, explained that the rest of the staircases will be fixed as soon as the contract aspect comes on stream.

In the meantime, 59-year-old resident Althea McIntosh, who sustained injuries during the incident, said she was still reeling from her experience, which she said could have taken her life. She had been sitting on the stairs when it collapsed. McIntosh was subsequently assisted to Kingston Public Hospital by the police. She was treated and sent home Sunday evening.

“I could have died; I am traumatised. It was a frightening experience. I have not been able to sleep. I am afraid to go up to my apartment,” she said, tears welling in her eyes.

McIntosh recalled that she had been waiting on the steps for her 10-year old grandchild whom she had sent to the shop to buy rice and, upon his return, he witnessed her coming down with the steps.

“He is also traumatised. He has been crying non-stop and keeps hugging me,” she said.

McIntosh said that while she has been left with several bruises on her body, she is nevertheless grateful that her injuries were not worse. She is, however, saddened that she is unable to ply her trade selling fruits in the market downtown because of her injuries, noting that she has limited mobility in her right hand.

“I have to give thanks to God. If I was standing, you see how I am big, my weight would probably come down on my legs and cause more serious injuries,” she said, noting that she narrowly missed steel piercing her leg, as it tore instead through a pair of shorts she was wearing. She had also hit her head during the ordeal.