N.Y. Crane Collapse Kills 2 and Injures 1

By Robin Shulman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 31, 2008

NEW YORK, May 30 -- Andy Alvarez was working at a construction site on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Friday when he heard a sound "like a huge thunder, a rumbling sound, like an earthquake, followed by a boom," he said.

It was a crane snapping apart and collapsing onto a 23-story apartment building across the street from his work site. The incident echoed a similar one in Manhattan in March, in which seven people were killed, and after which a city building inspector was arrested on charges of lying about inspecting the crane. It also was similar to crane collapses in March in Miami and last week in Kansas City.

Two people were killed and one was seriously injured in Friday's accident. Officials could not immediately pinpoint the cause of the collapse that took place around 8 a.m., but some said they were troubled that it had not been averted by recent changes in regulations -- including extra inspections and supervision when cranes are raised higher.

"We heard somebody say, 'Just run! Run for your lives! Get out!' " said Alvarez, 44, recalling the initial panicked reaction.

Debris was raining down -- glass and bricks from the building across the street where pieces of the crane had bounced down and pried off the edges of balconies, according to witnesses.

"It was frantic," said Alvarez, a deeply tanned, muscular, tattooed man in a hard hat, a black shirt, overall jeans and construction boots. Some, but not all, of the details of his account could be independently confirmed.

Alvarez said he saw that the cab of the crane was "almost buried in the ground," and that the man he knew as Donny, the crane operator, was buried inside it. "I just broke down. I was overwhelmed by grief," Alvarez said.

Later, officials identified the crane operator as Donald Leo, 30, the son of a retired Fire Department lieutenant -- dead at the scene.

But Alvarez said he saw another injured man who looked as though he could be saved. He was partially covered by a piece of the crane, and he had head and leg wounds, he said.

"Me and three other guys tried to get him out," Alvarez said, describing how he started trying to pull rubble off of the man, only to find him tightly pinned, material holding down his wrist. A Fire Department spokesman confirmed the details of how the man was pinned down.

"He was alert, he had his eyes open, and was looking at us," said Alvarez, but the man didn't say a word. "I just told him, 'Hold on. Help is coming. Don't fall asleep,' " Alvarez said. "We gave him water."

Soon, Alvarez said he saw firefighters use special inflatable bags to move the crane and extract the man.

A Fire Department spokesman identified the man as Ramadan Kurtij, 27, and said that he died shortly afterward in hospital.

Witnesses described a scene of devastation at the site of the building -- which was slated to be 34 stories tall, including a middle school and luxury apartments -- as construction workers wept and held each other. Alvarez said he could not understand what went wrong.

"We're union workers; we take pride in what we build," he said. "We build it right. We build it safe. Something happened."

The Associated Press reported that the crane was operated by Sorbara Construction. A woman who answered the telephone at the company's Lynbrook, N.Y., headquarters, said no one was available to comment.

At a news conference after the collapse, Robert LiMandri, the acting commissioner of the city's Department of Buildings, said the crane had been erected April 20 and 21, with city inspectors on-site. He said it was or lengthened twice, on May 22 and May 27, in the presence of city engineers.

But Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, said there had been eight violations at the site, including one in April for operating a crane in an unsafe manner. On Thursday, someone phoned in a complaint that the crane was illegally hoisting objects across the street.

"We're in the midst of a development boom, and that's a good thing," Stringer said. "The bad thing is that we have not kept up a safety regimen consistent with the needs of the construction boom."

"What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable," said Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at a news conference, though he seemed testy when answering questions about the Department of Buildings.

"It was not D.O.B. that crashed," Bloomberg said. "It was the crane that collapsed."

"Sadly, the two crane accidents, in a short period of time, look like a pattern, but there's no reason to think there is any connection," he said.

But Betsy Gotbaum, New York City's public advocate, issued a statement accusing the Department of Buildings of being "asleep at the wheel," and calling for stricter enforcement and more inspectors.

Gov. David Paterson said he will ask the State Department of Labor and the state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal to investigate.

"Obviously, there is a problem," said Greg Selton, 49, a computer programmer who lives in the Upper East Side. "The question is: Does the city have enough personnel to inspect all construction sites in the city? I think there should be a moratorium on high-rise buildings until they can determine how this happened."

In the District of Columbia, Linda K. Argo, the director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, said in a statement that her agency will immediately begin emergency inspections of all cranes in the District in response to the New York incident. She added that a disaster of such proportion is unlikely in the District, where building heights are limited.