CRUSHED ON THE JOB Faulty lift at Queens eatery kills man in horrific accident
A malfunctioning mechanical lift fatally crushed a restaurant worker at a popular Queens eatery Monday, a grisly accident that devastated his closeknit family and shocked fellow staffers.
Granville Wiltshire, 67, of St. Albans — a native of Jamaica who moved to the U.S. nearly two decades ago — was dragged from the basement to the street level at The Door restaurant on Baisley Blvd. near Guy R. Brewer Blvd. in Jamaica, Queens, about 6:30 a.m., officials and restaurant workers said. He died at the scene.
The chain-driven lift is used to move supplies between the basement and a metal hatch on the sidewalk in front.
According to one restaurant worker who didn’t want to be identified, Wiltshire (inset), who usually works as a cleaner at the eatery, was alone in the basement, and a passerby on the sidewalk knocked on the restaurant door to alert staffers to the horrific accident.
“All they could tell us, he was there at this time, the machine wasn’t working,” his daughter, Simone Wiltshire, 38, told the Daily News. “This thing is crazy. We couldn’t even get his hat, his cellphone.”
“It’s frustrating.”
The grieving family—wife Mazie, daughter, and son Fabian, 30 —gathered to comfort one another, and shared old photos of the beloved patriarch with The News.
“Daddy, why?” Simone Wiltshire cried, tears running down her face. “My daddy was always reliable, I could call him to do anything, anything, he never failed.”
“He never say no to me. Me and my brother,” she said.
Mazie Wiltshire recalled the couple met in Jamaica when they were young, and grew up together. He moved to the U.S. 17 years ago.
“Very honest, would go the extra mile,” she said, her face pained and taut. “He was always up, always singing.”
And it was that carefree image his family remembered as they pored over old pictures.
“He’s a good storyteller. Very funny, funny guy,” Simone Wiltshire said. “He liked to listen to music, listen to reggae and bring back memories,” especially Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Dennis Brown.
And, she said lovingly, he paid attention to his appearance: “Whatever he bought,
p g y. liked to be matching— red hat, red top.”
Restaurant staffers were also in shock, echoing the family depiction of Wiltshire as friendly and outgoing.
“He’s a real sweetheart” and “always jovial,” said Mikhaila Holiday, 25, who works at the Smokehouse, where she said Wiltshire also worked as a cleaner. “I’m really going to miss him because he’s such a darling man.”
The Door employee Gary Robinson, 49, said the tragic accident was baffling.
“We always use [the lift] in a safe manner. We don’t know what happened,” he said.
But he said a camera in the basement, as well as one pointing at the mishap, may have caught the accident. The city’s Buildings Department inspectors were investigating.
A supervisor at the restaurant, who’d only give his name as Robert, was doing the job Wiltshire usually did at the eatery: scrubbing down the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.
“That could have been me,” he said. “I’m not feeling too good.”
“He was a friendly person,” said a chef at The Door who only gave his first name, Tony. “Him just talk and laugh and … joke.”