Shopper taken to hospital after reportedly ignoring cordon around unstable pavement and falling 4 metres

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A woman has been taken to hospital after she fell down a hole in a busy London high street with a shopping trolley.



Witnesses described hearing a loud scream as the woman, believed to be in her 40s, vanished through a 1 metre-wide gap in the bricked pavement and fell 4 metres.

Other witnesses said a man had fallen down the same hole in Fulham, west London, shortly before and twisted his ankle.

A flower stall owner, who asked not to be named, said the woman ignored a cordon set up around the vulnerable patch of pavement outside Marrakech Express on North End Road.

“The shop owner was shouting out to her: ‘Don’t come through there,’” he said. “We looked over and she was down, all the way down the hole. She had walked on to it and it had collapsed beneath her.”

Emily Henderson posted a picture of the hole on Twitter.

emily (@emily_hendo23) Everybody remember where you were the day of Fulhams great sink hole. #neverforget pic.twitter.com/iX3QKOeNYB

At first passers-by feared the woman had fallen in with a pram, but shopkeepers said this was not the case.

Kate Sissons posted pictures of the hole in the ground on her Instagram account and wrote: “OMG! Poor woman and pram just disappeared down this hole on North End Rd. She’s stuck down there.”

Paramedics were called to the scene of the accident shortly after 8.50am. A spokeswoman for the London Ambulance Service said: “

We sent an ambulance crew to the scene. The patient was shaken but not seriously injured and we took her to Charing Cross hospital.”