A bridge painter fiddling with his safety harness fell mid-span from the Throgs Neck Bridge this morning — and co-workers said they saw him alive in the frigid water before currents swept him from view.
Cops, firefighters and the Coast Guard are still searching the water beneath the bridge for the man, identified by sources as John Massas, 35, a Bronx resident and married father of three.
A helicopter hovers above the Throgs Neck Bridge, where a worker plummeted from ther span into the water. (Dennis Clark)
Massa was working on a platform beneath the bridges’ roadbed, which at its greatest height is 142 feet above the Long Island Sound. He was either changing or adjusting his safety harness when he fell, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
“He was alive when he hit the water. He was treading water. We waved to him and he waved back to us,” said a colleague.
But a safety boat –- which was supposed to be patrolling the area beneath the bridge in case anyone fell -– was not in place at the time, workers said. The Coast Guard and police showed up at the scene before the safety boat, they said.
Officials at the scene estimated the water temperature at 45 degrees or below.
Massas works for El Sol Contracting and Construction of Maspeth, Queens.
“He was a great guy. He’s been doing this job for 10 years,” said a shocked colleague.
“He’s hardworking member of our family,” said an office employee of Massas’ union, Local Local 806 of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades.