SUV falls into Lake Success pit, killing driver
BY SOPHIA CHANG
8:47 PM EST, February 13, 2008


A Nesconset woman driving her husband to work at a Lake Success construction site Wednesday hit a patch of ice and teetered on the edge of a 30-foot-deep pit, before she was killed when her sport utility vehicle plummeted and landed on its roof, Nassau police said.

The husband was able to jump clear of the GMC Yukon before it fell, but the woman, trapped in her seat belt, fell with the car and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Police did not identify the couple, but car registration records show the SUV belonged to Julie Simon, 47, of Locust Street. Around 8:50 a.m. Wednesday, the woman was dropping off her husband at the Granite Buildings at 1991 Marcus Ave., police said.

The couple both worked as wallpaper hangers, but only the husband was contracted to work on construction of an office building and an underground parking garage in the excavated pit, according to police.

The husband was taken to an unidentified local hospital for observation, police said. A man who answered the door at the Simons' home Wednesday afternoon declined to comment.

After an evening of heavy snowfall in the region melted in steady rain Wednesday morning, the pavement around the garage construction site was coated with "an inch of ice," said Det. Sgt. Anthony Repalone Wednesday at the scene of the accident.

The couple had driven into an area that was fenced off from the public, and as they approached the edge of a cement platform on top of the parking garage pit, the wife apparently tried to stop the car, police said. The skidding car broke through a cable wire strung across the open edge.

Jayson Dayton, 23, a carpenter from Patchogue who was working at the garage pit, said that walking on the pavement Wednesday morning was like "wearing a pair of sneakers and running across an ice skating rink."

He added that all the construction workers use a different entrance to the site, but the husband, just two days into the contract, may not have known where to go.

Charles Simon was working on the second of the two Granite Buildings, office buildings owned by Lake Success-based Lalezarian Properties with tax breaks from the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency as incentive to build in the area, according to agency chairman Howard Fensterman.

The first Granite Building, at 1999 Marcus Ave., was completed in 2005 and is home to banks and medical offices.

Andrew Miltenburg, a Manhattan-based attorney for Lalezarian Properties, said the company was responsible for oversight of the construction and that the investigation was ongoing.

"It's a real tragedy," Miltenburg said.

Dayton said after he heard the car fall, he saw the husband, who was frantic and in denial.

"He was walking around, saying, 'no, no, no, this can't be,'" Dayton said.

Staff writer Andrew Strickler contributed to this report.