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Young Teenager Killed in Forklift Mishap

forklift.jpgA 13-year-old boy was killed after being trapped underneath an overturned forklift at a Brooklyn lumber yard yesterday. The young man was Kevin Hrcka, whose father worked at the Miron Building Supply company as a fork lift operator.

The son of the business's owner and vice president, Derek Messing, said that Kevin was a frequent visitor to Miron, where he would meet his dad at the end of his workday. Messing said, “He was a great kid, I was told. He was very big into karate, and actually, the father and the son trained in karate together. They were very close. They did almost everything together.” Still, Messing, per the NY Times, "said children were not allowed in the lot, nor was anyone who was not an employee or a customer."

The boy's father was reportedly changing out of his work uniform when Kevin climbed into one of the machines that had the keys still in the ignition. When the vehicle overturned, the 13-year-old was trapped as he attempted to jump off the machine. Another worker used a separate forklift to lift the first off the boy, but he was declared dead at the scene.

Federal regulations prohibit children from operating forklifts, but skidmarks indicated that Hrcka had been driving one at a high rate of speed when he attempted a turn at the end of the Miron work lot. A graphic from the Daily News of how the accident seems to have happened.

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Comments [rss]

  • nonumentalart

    dumbass

  • berniegoetz

    I know someone who fixes the hydraulics on forklifts and says they're deathtraps. Too bad dad didn't work at a cement company. Nothing says "boring" like keys left in the ignition of a steamroller. Well, then again, there was that scene in Austin Powers...

  • JacqueMehoff

    I want that job, too.

    forensic graphic designer specialist.

    must be a slow news day at the newsroom.

  • tnturner

    anyone know how I can get a job designing these "dramatizations". And what's the job title? "Scenerio Artist?"

  • ern

    Sad, yes. But I am not suggesting that this is a winner. Hardly.

    Others more deserving of the award will be the boy who shoots himself in the head, playing with his father's loaded gun and the one who suffocates in his parent's car trunk while playing hide-and-seek.

    But of course the real winner will be a grown up. Adults find the most ingenious ways to inadvertently off themselves.

  • Dave Hogarty

    Come on, show me a 13-year-old boy who could resist taking a forklift for a joyride when he finds the keys in the ignition. This is just sad.

  • ern

    First nomination of the year for the Darwin Award.

  • i wonder if osha will fine the lumber company.

    i took a forklift class once. those things are pretty dangerous!

  • matukonyc

    Federal regulations prohibit children from operating forklifts....

    Wow - you don't say!!

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