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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
A New York City man plunged 39 stories Tuesday from a West Side high-rise, crashed through the windshield of a sports car — and lived to tell the story.
Witnesses and police say 22-year-old Thomas Magill suffered just a broken leg, a shattered ankle and a collapsed lung after his 10:44 a.m. leap from atop the West End Towers on West End Avenue at 63rd Street. He landed in the backseat area of a Dodge Charger after crashing through the windshield.
"I can't believe this. My car saved his life," said Guy McCormack, a worker at a nearby construction site who had borrowed the 2008 red Dodge Charger from his wife, according to the New York Post.
Magill was in critical condition Tuesday night, but those who saw him fall were stunned he made it to the hospital.
McCormack, 40, of Old Bridge, N.J., told the New York Daily News he's convinced that rosary beads he kept inside the Dodge saved Magill's life.
"He came down feet first at like 100 mph," said witness Andrew Petrocelli, 47, a maintenance worker across the street from where Magill jumped.
Police sources said investigators believe he jumped from a 39th-floor window or balcony at 10:45 a.m. He landed in the car's backseat and trunk area, twisted like a pretzel. Magill hit so hard that his royal-blue Keds sneakers were knocked off his feet and one landed on the windshield of a car parked behind McCormack's Dodge.
Magill's father, Thomas Sr., said, "He's stable now. We can only hope he'll be okay," after doctors briefed him on his son's surgery at St. Luke's Hospital.
An Associated Press report in NorthJersey.com says police are investigating why Magill jumped from the building.
Magill, whose family lives on Staten Island, was once listed as a resident of the Manhattan building, West End Towers at 75 West End Ave.
"I hate my life," says his Facebook page. Under the category "bio," he posted, "I'm over it," and he listed "being mean" and "making fun of people" as interests.
An aspiring Broadway actor, the New York Post reports Magill was a singer who, friends said, had recently starred in an off-off-Broadway performance of "Into the Woods."
While surviving a fall of 39 stories would be miraculous in any book, it's not unheard of in New York. According to NJ.com, window washer Alcides Moreno from Linden, New Jersey survived a 43-story accidental fall on Dec. 7, 2008, from an East Side skyscraper.
