Three workers — including a father and son — were killed yesterday in a horrific accident at a Queens recycling plant when they fell into a sludge vat filled with toxic fumes, officials said.
The victims’ bodies were pulled from the rank container at Regal Recycling in Jamaica — a privately owned solid and putrescible (as in putrid) waste plant — at around 2:30 p.m.
“I was in my office when I heard cries of ‘Help! Help! Clear the road!’ ” said Alan Persaud, 33, the owner of a steel company across the street.
The father, Shlomo Dahan, 53, and his son, Harel, 23, who owned a sewer-cleaning company in South Ozone Park, were scouring the filthy pit loaded with noxious gases when the son was overcome by hydrogen sulfide fumes, sources said.
There was about four feet of detritus, including garbage, oil and runoff, in the hole — which measures 3 feet in diameter by 18 feet deep — at the time of the accident.
The father desperately tried to rescue his son by dropping a ladder into the hole at the facility on Douglas Avenue, near 170th Street, but he, too, was overcome.
When Rene Francisco Rivas, 52, a worker for Regal, noticed the men were missing, he tried to help them, but in doing so, also fell victim to the toxic gas, which was four times the lethal limit of 50 parts per million over a 10-minute period.
“They were in a sewer but they were sinking,” Persaud said. “It’s like quicksand. When the debris mixes with water, it’s like mud.”
Firefighters who arrived at 2:30 p.m. donned scuba gear to reach the men, but it was too late.
They attached a harness to each body and pulled them from the pit.
“He was a very sweet guy,” said Abe Rosenthal, a friend of the father, an Israeli immigrant from Brooklyn who leaves four other children.
“I can’t believe what happened,” Rosenthal said.
“Shlomo has the gentlest soul you could ever meet,” said Moshe Zarum, 36, a neighbor.
“He died a hero’s end. There is nothing bad you could ever say about him.”
Another neighbor, Cher Weitzman, described Harel as, “everybody’s best friend,” saying he was devoted to his mother and “would do anything for her.”
Regal is licensed to process 600 tons of municipal waste and 266 tons of construction debris every day.
The company, which was issued a permit in 1991, has no current violations, according to Maureen Wren, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The tragedy was not the company’s first.
In 2005, a worker, Effraine Calderone, 46, was crushed to death by a forklift.
No charges were filed in that incident.
Additional reporting by Christina Carrega