CHICAGO, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- A mother of two is dead after a stone gargoyle fell three stories from an old church in Chicago, striking her as she was taking a walk with her fiance.
Lance Johnson was enjoying a lunch date with his 34-year-old fiance Sarah Bean as the two were walking past the Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago's South Loop Tuesday when a piece of metal broke loose from the church's roof. The debris fell into a statue of a gargoyle, knocking it from its perch and to the ground three stories below.
"[Johnson] was walking and he looked both sides to see where [Bean] was at and he turned around and realized that she got hit by a brick," witness Deapolis Moore told MyFOXChicago.
From there, witness accounts only get grislier.
"She fell flat down in the street, her hands started clenching, like trying to catch air or things like that, trying to stay alive," described Broderick Adams.
"I was close up on her because I was trying to calm [Johnson] down because he was real hysterical about the situation so she was gone right when it happened."
Erected in 1874, the church is a protected historic landmark notable as the place where first lady Mary Todd Lincoln worshiped.
"It's an old hazard of these beautiful structures that go way up into the sky," warned Second Presbyterian Minister Ken Vaux.
"It can always happen."
