Construction worker dies in New York crane accident

A NYC hard hat who was installing a crane died after the counter weight he was setting fell on him.

34 year old Gregory Echevarria was part of a crew installing a crane at a luxury residential development located at 570 Broome Street in Soho early Saturday morning. A little bit after 3:00 am the crane counterweight that Echevarria was installing slipped and fatally struck him. The crew immediately called 911. When the EMS crew arrived they found him unresponsive with severe injuries all over his body. He was declared dead at the scene of the accident. Two other workers were also injured in the accident.  People who were in the area at the time of the accident reported a very loud sound as the 7.5 ton counterweight fell.

After the accident the crane was moved and a stop work order was issued by the Department of Buildings. The 570 Broom project is being built by  Agime Group. KSK Construction Group is managing the construction project. The DOB previously received several safety complaints for the site.

Not the first fatal accident for Crane Express

Echevarria was employed by  Crane Express. His brother was also working on the site as the crane operator for the same company. He is the one who got him the job with the company. Crane Express doesn’t have the best reputation . In 2015 the company had to pay a $3500 OSHA fine for a serious safety violation at a New Jersey construction site. The following year, two workers hired by Crane Express were killed in a crane accident at a Queens construction site. A crane operator and his flagman were crushed by a 6,500 pound steel beam that crashed on the cab after a crane wire snapped.

A lifelong Bushwick resident, Gregory Echevarria had 4 children. 3 from an ex-wife and a five-month old from his fiancee. Echevarria was also a war hero who had several deployments in Irak and Afghanistan.  He was a tank operator.

Echevarria is the third construction worker to die on the job this week in New York.

Read more in the NY Daily News