BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — The 19-year-old construction worker killed at a Brooklyn work site last week had warned his mother about close calls, according to reports.
Fernando Vanegas of Corona, Queens, was doing excavation work at 656 Myrtle Ave. on Sept. 3 when a section of a rear wall collapsed inward onto him and two other workers, officials said.
Vanegas had moved to New York from Ecuador less than a year ago, according to the New York Times, and often told his mother about the dangers in his line of work.
“He would always tell me about how he had close calls,” Enma Ulloa told the newspaper.
Officials at the site said the first-story wall wasn’t properly supported at the time of the incident. The two other workers were taken to local hospitals.
Vanegas' death comes on the heels of others at separate work sites in the last month — one on the Upper East Side and another in Hell's Kitchen.
In Bed-Stuy, permits were issued in July to extend an existing one-story commercial building on the Myrtle Avenue site to a mixed-use, five-story dwelling, according to city records.
The investigation is ongoing as of Wednesday, a Department of Buildings spokesman said.
Representatives of the building’s owner, listed in city records as Binyan Myrtle LLC, as well as reps for the general contactor, Y&S Framers Inc., could not be immediately reached for comment.
It was reported that the professional engineer behind the work site attempted to jump off a roof after slitting his wrists a day after the fatal incident.
Representatives for Avishay Mazor, listed as the engineer in city documents, did not respond to several requests for comment.
