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Turkey loses encounter with skyscraper
Thursday, March 16, 2000 By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer
An aviation catastrophe -- or is that avian catastrophe? -- struck Downtown at rush hour yesterday morning, when the 40-story glass tower that is One PPG Place was smacked by a wild turkey.
An eyewitness at the scene reported hearing the crash and watching as the out-of-control bird almost hit an unidentified businesswoman on the plaza below.
"It was a loud plop, muffled thud sort of sound," said George C. Gross, who, hours after the tragedy, still was shaking.
With the giggles.
Here is his account:
Gross, a 32-year-old business development manager with CISCORP in Robinson, was crossing PPG Plaza on his way into the skyscraper for a meeting at approximately 7:35 a.m. He was about 20 feet away when he heard "a loud plop, is the best word I can describe it as."
Right in front of him, "I watched a middle-aged blonde, bright red business skirt outfit, kinda do a sidestep and a look of kinda horror."
Just three to five feet away, "This damn big mound of a dead turkey was lying there."
Seconds turned into, well, minutes, as Gross' yet uncaffeinated brain tried to grasp what he'd just seen:
"This lady almost got nailed by this turkey!"
But it would only get worse.
At least, for the turkey, which Gross estimated to weigh 25 pounds. Somehow, he figured, the feathered flier had gotten way off course and didn't have the equipment to distinguish the reflective building from its flight path. From the sound, Gross figured that impact occurred as high as 20 stories up, and that the turkey had broken its neck (though no glass) before plunging to the ground.
"Then its legs ran a little bit. [The woman] said, 'Oh my God, it's still alive!' For a second I thought, oh my God, I'm going to have to break its neck.
"It probably would have killed me to do it."
But then, nothing.
"I pronounced it dead at the scene."
Gross went to his meeting, not before cracking a few jokes to security guards and the few other people who were around. All he could think of was that famous 1978 episode of the television series "WKRP in Cincinnati," where Les Nessman narrates the horror that unfurls when the radio station releases 20 turkeys from a helicopter, not knowing that domesticated turkeys can't fly.
The woman, who may or may not have seen the show (titled "Turkeys Away"), went on her own way, presumably with her life forever altered.
Not as much as that of the turkey, whose remains were removed by a cleaning crew.
"It was actually a real pretty bird," Gross said. "It's not too often that you get to see a wild turkey laid out there."
Indeed, even though wildlife is becoming more and more common in urban areas, he summed up the biggest lingering question in the accident's aftermath: "Why would a big turkey be flying in Downtown Pittsburgh?"
By yesterday afternoon, there was no trace of the wreckage, not even a chalk outline.
And building security officials weren't saying much, though a few still were smiling and shaking their heads, not sure whether to believe their colleagues who'd worked the morning shift.
Maintenance man Greg Dennison didn't start work until later, but he heard about the turkey from colleagues, whom, he believed, "pitched it."
"What probably happened is, he got lost," Dennison said, standing in the lengthening shadow of the office tower where hundreds unwittingly go to work on mornings just like yesterday.
"He thought it was all sky, but it's all glass," Dennison added quietly. "Poor thing."
Inside the office of Grubb & Ellis Management Services Inc., which runs the complex, spokeswoman Jane Gaughan said that the glass PPG buildings frequently are struck by birds, just not birds this large.
"It might have come off Mount Washington," she speculated. "It could have caught the wind off the river."
Or, if it were depressed, "It could have jumped," she offered.
"Thank God cows don't fly."
Gross, for one, was thankful that no one was hurt.
Well, almost no one.
"I don't know if I'll be able to walk by that spot without thinking about that bird."
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