COLONIAL HEIGHTS, Va. -- A man suffered minor injuries when the floor of his apartment collapsed shortly after midnight Thursday at the Colonial Court Apartments in Colonial Heights.
Orlando Jones said he was using the bathroom upstairs when the floor gave way and his leg fell through.
A photo taken at the scene showed the man's leg coming through the ceiling of his kitchen.
"I walked in and went through the floor,” Orlando Jones said. "I thought I was going to be on top of the stove, I was nervous about that.”
Investigators said Jones was stuck between his second-story bathroom floor and first-floor kitchen ceiling before firefighters rescued him.
Jones was stuck so badly that it took firefighters about an hour to get him free.
"I grabbed the sink, I pulled the whole sink off the wall trying to hold on, trying to catch my balance, but I went down through the floor. I couldn't catch myself," Jones said.
"It was just crazy, never seen nothing like it, he was stuck in the ceiling," said Diamond Goldsmith, who lives nearby.
Investigators said it appeared a toilet in the second-floor bathroom had been leaking for months prior to this morning's collapse.
"The floor joists themselves have received some water damage, they appear to be very sturdy and holding primarily the sub-floor itself, which was rotting away," Colonial Heights Deputy Fire Marshal Joe Boisseau said. "So where he stepped through just happened to be between the joists and fell right through."
One woman who lives at the apartment complex was not surprised about the leak.
"I can't say that I am, cause honestly some things don't really get fixed as they should, so I can't say I'm really surprised," April Fitzsimons said.
