QUEENS — A worker who was killed at a Briarwood construction site Tuesday was standing or sitting on the 6,500 pound beam moments before it crashed to the ground killing him and another worker below, according to an official familiar with the investigation.
And CRV Precast Erectors, the crane operators at the 81-10 135 St. site, didn't have the special permit the city requires when workers go out on beams, the city official said Thursday.
The city's Department of Buildings has hit the site with stop work orders for failing to safeguard the construction site during crane operations. Several violations were also issued, according to the agency's website, but additional details were not provided.
Minutes before his death, at around 12:10 p.m., Elizandro Ramos, 43, was either sitting or standing on a beam suspended from a crane, which was being operated from below by worker George Smith, 47.
Ramos was trying to connect the suspended beam to the existing structure, the city source said, when the cable holding it gave way.
The I-beam crashed to the ground killing Smith in the crane cab below. It took emergency workers more than five hours to free him.
Officials are now investigating whether or not Ramos was wearing a harness at the time of the fall, the city source said.
Crain's New York earlier reported that Ramos was on the beam before his death.
An employee of CRV Precast Erectors, Donna Morris, had previously told DNAinfo New York that Ramos was on the ground at the time of his death, attempting to guide the beam with a tether he was holding.
In August 2015, OSHA fined CRV Precast $6,300 for failing to have a heat stress program in place after worker Alton Lewis collapsed and died after working a full shift in 105 degree heat at a Williamsburg construction site, Crains New York reported.
Workers at the company didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.
Smith was remembered by friends as having a big heart and spent much of his spare time rescuing bulldogs on Long Island.
