A construction worker from Long Island scored a whopping $6.3 million settlement from the city after a 20-foot fall from scaffolding at a Brooklyn school left him unable to tie his shoes and forced him to send his older son to live with relatives to save money.
“I try to make the best of it in front of everybody but alone it’s a horror show . . . I’m 43 and I feel like I’m 83,” Brian Petrides told The Post Wednesday after his settlement with the city in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“My 6-year-old has to put my shoes on me. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. If I had snapped my neck and died, I feel like it would have been better for my family than to have to take care of me.”
The injuries left him unable to work, and Petrides two years ago was forced to send his 11-year-old son, Nicholas, to live with his wife’s sister.
“We financially couldn’t keep everybody in the house and feed everybody,” said Petrides, who is overjoyed that the mammoth settlement will allow Nicholas to return home.
“Having my whole family together under one roof will make me feel like a little bit more of a man.”
Petrides sued the city, the Department of Education and the School Construction Authority in December 2010.
The union laborer was working at the East New York site when an SCA contractor told him to dismantle scaffolding.
Petrides argued that the job was too dangerous but the contractor ordered him to go ahead, then tragedy struck.
“I just went right over and landed headfirst on broken-up concrete,” he recalled.
His lawyer, Edmond Chakmakian, said “the job had been shut down before because of the scaffolding being unsafe. In this case, the SCA failed to tie down and secure the planks . . . so when Brian stepped on it, it went out from under him.”
A city Law Department spokeswoman declined to comment.