The family of the construction worker who died in a devastating crane collapse on E. 91st St. fled the courtroom as their attorneys showed jurors a recently unearthed, graphic photo of the Kosovo immigrant lying under a pile of debris.
“It’s too much for us to handle right now,” said Ramadan Kurtaj’s widow Selbi Sinanovic outside court on Tuesday.
“It would be too hurtful,” Sinanovic said, drying tears from her eyes.
A few days before the start of the civil, wrongful death trial — stemming from the 2008 collapse — Kurtaj’s attorneys located the photo on Flickr. Kurtaj’s face and orange construction vest are visible in the lower section of the shot, where he waited, conscious and in “agonizing pain,” for rescuers to pry him out from over 150,000 pounds of debris — roughly the weight of a Boeing 737, lawyer said.
The Kurtaj family, who traveled from their mountain village in Kosovo to attend the trial, blames the construction and Lomma crane company for putting profit ahead of safety by operating a crane they knew was damaged.