By Jerry Burke
Nassau County police identified two men who were electrocuted last Thursday as they were dismantling the metal scaffolding outside a Floral Park home as David Coy Sanchez, 25, and Elquin Astaiza Ceballos, 19, both of Elmont.
According to police, Sanchez and Ceballos were installing siding on a home near the corner of Calla Avenue and Zinnia Street. At 5:30 p.m., as workers dismantled the scaffolding, police said, a section of metal struck overhead high-voltage power lines, injuring Sanchez and Ceballos as well as three other workers. The two men, who police say caught fire as the electrical current passed through their bodies, were rushed to Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, where they were pronounced dead on arrival.
The three other men, who were not identified, were in stable condition as of Friday afternoon.
Ted Fitzgerald, a spokesman for OSHA, said that the men's employer was Home Exteriors of Elmont, a subcontractor for United Windows Doors and Siding of Hempstead. Neither company had listed phone numbers, and neither could be reached for comment. Fitzgerald said that an investigation was under way, but according to OSHA's online violation records, neither company had been subject to an investigation in the past five years.
The incident eerily mirrored one last Nov. 14, in which two construction workers installing vinyl siding on a home on Leighton Road in Elmont came in contact with a 13,000-volt electrical line, leaving one man dead and another permanently injured. In that incident, 34-year-old Hicksville resident Santos Garcia was killed instantly, and 33-year-old Jose Alvarenga of Elmont was flown to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow with serious burns after the scaffolding they were working on contacted the home's main power line.
Police believe that in that case, one of the men may have either hoisted a piece of the scaffolding directly into the line or raised the platform on which they were standing into contact with it. No charges were filed in the ensuing investigation, although police said the scaffolding had been erected closer to the power lines than the federally mandated 10-foot distance.
According to a spokesperson for the Long Island Power Authority, contractors usually call the company to request that it turn off the power lines when work is being done in an area around them. There is no evidence that such a request was made in the November case, and LIPA could not yet comment on whether it were contacted before the Floral Park incident.
Neither Sanchez's nor Ceballos's family could be reached for comment.
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