A worker at a wholesale marble warehouse was crushed to death while attempting to move two stone slabs Friday afternoon.
The unidentified 50-year-old Queens man was an employee for the Long Island City-based Leadstone USA, located on 50th Ave., across the street from a UPS warehouse in the shadow of the Long Island Expressway, authorities said.
The worker attempted to move the marble slabs with a mechanical hoist about 5 p.m, when he may have slipped and became trapped under the heavy rock.
The man, authorities said, suffered severe trauma to the neck and was pronounced dead at the scene.
A 50-year-old UPS employee, who only gave his first name Vic, said that he has observed the contraption that he called “a boom,” which the company uses to move its stone slabs.
He said he’s seen the marble lifted to a beam on the ceiling that moves along a track the width of the warehouse.
Despite not knowing the victim, he was overcome with emotion.
“Just imagine what he was going through with that initial contact,” Vic said, standing outside the taped-off warehouse, hours after the deadly incident. “Ugh, what he was thinking. Hopefully it just knocked him out.
“This has not been a Good Friday,” he said.
The victim’s name was not released, pending family notification and the cause of death will be determined by the Medical Examiner’s Office.
The rock company’s website claims it deals in “the highest quality marble” composed of 93% “natural Quartz” and 7% resin.
Leadstone USA’s site also boasts supplying distributors and fabricators for kitchen sinks or bathroom vanities with “the largest standard size slabs in the industry” measuring 126 inches by 64 inches.
Attempts to reach the owner of Leadstone USA’s Long Island City outfit, where its warehouse is located, or its Monroe Township, N.J., offices were not immediately returned.