By JOSEPH KELLARD
Lauren Ludwig, 52, an assistant director at the Oceanside Counseling Center, was walking from her car in the parking lot to the OCC office in the school at 11:31 a.m. on Aug. 22 when she was caught between the front and rear articulating tires of a Lull Hi-Loader. When the operator of the tractor-like vehicle, George Papas, 29, of Staten Island, heard a scream, he stopped the unit immediately, according to police.
Ludwig was lying face down, unconscious and bleeding from a gash from her thigh to her stomach, witnesses said. The Oceanside Fire Department was called at 11:36 a.m., responded to the scene and transported Ludwig to South Nassau Communities Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at noon by hospital staff.
The contracting company, Proton Construction Corp. of Brooklyn, had designated an area in the parking lot, near the Castleton Court entrance to the school, where it kept roofing materials, and Papas was in the midst of transporting these to the south side of the building when he ran over Ludwig.
Following the incident, police conducted an investigation of the scene and safety checks on the vehicle. It has four large wheels and a forklift used to carry pallets of building materials. Detective Lt. Dennis Farrell noted that there is a boom arm that runs along the entire length of the vehicle "and clearly obstructs the operator's vision," he said.
Farrell said that the operator was "obviously not aware" of Ludwig, and that she likely walked into the path of the vehicle. "It's all supposition on my part whether or not she was aware of this Hi-Loader," he said, "but she probably didn't realize the vehicle was coming down in at an angle to her or directly behind her, or whatever the exact cause was. It was obvious she was unaware of it and then she was struck. We don't think she fell and was then run over. We think the vehicle struck her and then ran over her, and then that caused her death."
A Whitestone resident, Ludwig had worked at the Oceanside Counseling Center, an affiliate of SNCH, since Dec. 2004. The center provides drug- and alcohol-related treatment, and has operated out of School 6 for the past 15 years. While the OCC declined to comment on the incident, Nan Gerson, vice president of external affairs and development at SNCH, released a statement that read, "South Nassau Communities Hospital is deeply saddened by the tragic death of Lauren Ludwig."
William Paolini, Ludwig's brother, who lives in Flushing, said his sister devoted her life to social work, spending 24 years at Long Island Jewish Hospital before she came to Oceanside. "She loved trying to help people and worked in drug treatment all of her life," Paolini said the day of Ludwig's funeral. "She had a passionate belief that people could be helped and that they should be helped through tough times and not be abandoned. That was her greatest faith."
While Ludwig had no children of her own, Paolini noted that she was deeply devoted to her niece and three nephews. "She doted on them to no end," he said.
In addition to the police investigation, a local Occupational Safety and Health Administration office also looked into possible work-zone hazards. No charges in either investigation have yet been filed. "There seems to be no criminality," Farrell said.
Papas was reportedly unable to work the following day due to his emotional distress over the incident, but the parking lot remained open as the contracting company continued its work on the school building.
Ed Stein, the director of buildings and grounds for a local health care facility whose backyard abuts the school parking lot, said that in the first two days after the incident, the construction crew was conducting "business as usual," although the workers were "suddenly wearing hard hats," and neon-yellow safety flags had been draped across the brick wall being rebuilt at the top of the building.
"The forklift was still going around, and there's still people getting out of their cars going into the school," Stein said two days after the incident. "I saw a woman getting out of her car with Dunkin' Donuts and the forklift was right next to her, and they had construction workers walking on either side of the forklift, I guess to be the driver's eyes and watch his blind spots. I don't understand why they don't have that whole area roped off. It's a construction site."
Asked about the continuing construction work, Dr. Herb Brown, superintendent of Oceanside Schools, said that School Construction Consultants is the company the school board hired, in part, to ensure that the contractor conforms to safety and other work guidelines. But Michael Peck, owner of SCC, said his company only determines whether the work slated for the site is conducted and completed.
"Safety regulation is part of the contractor's responsibility," Peck said. "The contractor is responsible for their own safety protocol ... That's what the contract documents call for them to do."
Spiros Garyfallis, owner of Proton Construction, did not return a phone call for comment.
Stein believes there should be alternate areas where people can park and enter the school away from the construction area. "I feel that's negligence if they don't rope off that area," he said. "There are so many different entrances to the school. That woman could have been my 15-year-old son or my 12-year-old daughter."
"Sure, there was negligence," Ludwig's brother, Jim, told the New York Post. "At the construction zone there was no barrier, there were no orange cones."
