How do I repair ceiling sheetrock damage?

After more than 100 visits over the last 25 years to my unfinished
truss-built attic, I finally stepped through the ceiling below.

I made an X-shaped pair of cuts in it, one cut about 3 feet and the
other about 2, crossing in the middle, with 2 opposite pieces hanging
down, one a little bit, held up by the light fixture at one edge, and
one a lot, held up only by the paper.

I want to make as good a temporary repair as I can, working alone.
What should I do?

I think I can go up in the attic again, and nail a 1x4, or 2x2, or
2x4, between the two bordering trusses, right where the the two
dangling pieces would go; and then use sheet-rock screws to attach the
two dangling pieces to the new wood. The trusses are every 24 inches.

Maybe two more pieces of wood, one above each of the pieces that are
not danglng. Almost all of all four pieces is between the same two
trusses.

OR, maybe with the right brackets pre-attached, I could put in a piece
of plywood, 22 1/2 inches by a foot or a little more wide.

Is there some sort of bracket/hanger in the hanger section that would
make this easier so I could get the height of the new wood right?

Thanks.


I had put a lot of 16" wide 8-foot pieces of plywood there as a floor,
but I was carrying a 12" tv with one arm, and trying to move things
with the other so I could put the tv where I wanted it, and I stumbled
and went an inch or two beyond the bottom of the trusses, through one
of the few places in the middle area that had no "floor". I had only
been up there once in the last 2 or 3 years, and I think I forgot how
incomplete the "floor" was.