Three workers – including a father and son – were killed today in a horrific accident at a Queens recycling plant after they fell into a sludge vat and were engulfed in toxic fumes, officials said.
The victims bodies were pulled from the rank container at Regal Recycling in Jamaica a privately owned solid and putrescible 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.
Officials said the father and son, who own the S. Dahan sewer cleaning company in South Ozone Park, were trying to clean out a backup in the filthy pit when the son lost his balance and fell in.
There was about four feet of detritus, including garbage, oil and runoff, in the hole which measures three feet in diameter by 18 feet deep at the time of the accident.
“It was all garbage and muck. It was the bowels of the earth,” a source said.
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 was overcome with noxious fumes.
When 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.
Firefighters, who arrived just seven minutes after they received the call at 2:23, quickly 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 who died, an Israeli immigrant from Brooklyn who has four other children. Their names were withheld pending family notification. “I can’t believe what happened.”
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 New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
“New York State Department of Environmental Conservation staff will be inspecting the facility,” Wren added.
But this is not the company’s first brush with death.
In 2005, a worker, Effraine Calderone, 46, was crushed to death by a forklift.
No charges were filed in that incident.
“We have no comment at this time,” said a woman who answered the phone at Royal Waste Systems, which is affiliated with the plant. “Please have some respect.”
Additional Reporting by Philip Messing