PHILADELPHIA — A man operating a construction lift to work on a church roof drove over a sidewalk grate, slowly toppling the crane-like machine and sending him 125 feet to the ground.

The worker and a woman were taken to a hospital, said a Philadelphia Fire Department supervisor who declined to give his name. A hospital spokesman would not release information on the patients' condition.

The man was completing maintenance work to the church roof when the lift rode over a grate that slowly gave way, witnesses said. The lift slowly started to fall, grazing the top corner of a residential building, then knocking down a traffic light and light pole.

"It took forever for him to fall over," said Robert Lee, a construction worker on a nearby project. "He didn't scream. He was just trying to work the controls."

Lisa Callahan was in a neighboring building and said, the crash "sounded like an earthquake."

"It was like a boom and then it sounded like a lot of things just dropping and breaking. And then we heard a woman screaming," said Gayle Sproul, an attorney whose office is across the street.