A Bronx man who plummeted 15 feet after a sinkhole opened up underneath him has been left traumatised after he was swarmed by hundreds of scurrying rats as he waited for help, reports NYDN.

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Leonard Shoulders, 33, was waiting for a bus on Third Ave in Belmont last Saturday when the concrete sidewalk suddenly cracked open and swallowed him.

His brother Greg told NYDN:

As he was falling, he scraped his face, broke his arm and broke his leg.

He couldn’t move, and the rats were crawling all over him. He didn’t scream, because he didn’t want the rats going into his mouth.

Shoulders was stuck for half an hour until help arrived, his brother said.

He’s in the hospital recovering.

One part of this I am going to respectfully disagree with is when Leonard’s brother says he’s “in the hospital recovering”. There’s no way you can recover from something like this. OK sure his broken leg will heal as will all the cuts and bruises he suffered, but mentally? He’s finished. Scarred for life. It’s bad enough having the street collapse beneath you as you wait for the bus, but then finding yourself inside a New York sewer with an army of rats crawling all over your face for half an hour as you wait to be rescued? This guy really experienced that. And you’re telling he’s “recovering”? No chance.

It really puts things in perspective for the rest of us. After reading what this poor sod went through, I feel like any day where I don’t fall 15 feet through the pavement into a dark rat-infested pit is a good day. As long as that never happens to me, I swear I’ll never complain about anything in my life. If it does happen to me though, just tell the emergency services to cover the hole and leave me in there to die a carnivorous rat death. Because I’d rather be dead than have to carry on living with the memories of what’d just happened to me.

Thoughts & prayers, Leonard.

To watch an insane video of a murder hornet brutalising a rat to death, click HERE. Those things are not to be messed with.