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by TIM GRAY
A contract worker sandblasting the underside of a West Shore Expressway overpass was killed yesterday when he lost his balance and plunged 35 feet into shallow water below, police said.
Bruno Diaz, 24, of Newark, N.J., an employee of RML Construction Inc., the Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., company hired by the state Department of Transportation (DOT) to paint bridges on Staten Island -- was sandblasting the bottom of the Fresh Kills Bridge when he attempted to move an aluminum deck support panel to another section of the bridge.
The panel he was standing on slipped out from underneath a support cable, causing him to lose his balance and fall into the water, said Jennifer Nelson, a DOT spokeswoman.
One of Diaz's co-workers rappelled down a safety rope onto a nearby piling in a frantic attempt to rescue him before emergency units arrived, but became stranded on a piling, unable to make it ashore. Members of Rescue Co. 5, which responded to the scene, plucked the worker off the piling and brought him to St. Vincent's Hospital, West Brighton, for observation, police said.
Meanwhile, rescue workers -- using Jet Skis to reach the inlet -- rushed to search Great Kills Creek for Diaz, without success.
Emergency crews from city Harbor, Aviation and Scuba units then combed the murky waters for several hours before retrieving the man's body at approximately 3:56 p.m., according to police.
Diaz was pronounced dead at the scene.
Steve White, a volunteer firefighter and freelance photographer at the scene, said Diaz likely died because he landed in only 5 feet of water.
The incident, which occurred at approximately 1:30 p.m., snarled traffic along both directions of the expressway for several hours.
State DOT safety officials and representatives of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration converged on the site yesterday afternoon. They interviewed witnesses to decide what, if any, safety procedures had broken down, said Ms. Nelson.
Diaz was wearing a required safety harness, but officials were investigating whether it was attached to a lanyard connected to the bridge.
Phone calls to RML Construction in New Jersey were not returned yesterday.
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