Fatal fall
Family mourns man who died putting up hurricane shutters.
It was supposed to be just another work day. But there was a monster storm coming and Elaine Woodson was scared. She turned to her husband, Philip Woodson, for reassurance.
“I asked him if we were going to be OK and he promised we would,” she said.
She wouldn’t see him again. He died in a 15-foot fall from a ladder while putting up shutters Sept. 7, police said, before Hurricane Irma’s winds hit South Florida. He became one of more than two dozen Floridians to die in connection with the storm.
According to the police report released Tuesday, Woodson’s nephew who was working with him told authorities that Woodson was on the top of the ladder reaching for bolts when he apparently lost his balance and fell to the concrete, hitting his head.
In an interview with the Sun Sentinel, his family spoke for the first time this week about the tragedy.
His family said he owned the company All Pro Services for more than a decade after moving to South Florida from Long Island.
That morning’s job assignment for a customer in Davie was the first of the day, and Elaine Woodson said her husband planned a light schedule so he could get home to put up his own shutters for his Plantation house.
The couple married 35 years ago and have two children, including a 15-year-old.
Philip Woodson would have turned 58 on Saturday.
On Sept. 7, his wife gave him a kiss and off he went to work, she said. “I told him to hurry up home because I feel safe with him. He said, ‘I will.’ ”
Elaine Woodson said she was forced to ride out the hurricane without him, but “we didn’t lose our power, we didn’t lose our cable. He’s right here watching over us and he watched over his family members.”
She said his extended family — eight brothers and sisters — “were all safe, no damage.”
Michael Baselice III, a retired emergency medical services for Palm Beach County’s fire department, said he tried to save Woodson.
He lives next to the house Woodson was working at in the Poinciana Parc development and was in his backyard working with a fence installer when he heard a loud crash and somebody scream, “Oh my God, he fell!”
He said Woodson was bleeding so he called 911 and started CPR when Woodson stopped breathing.
His breathing resumed, so Baselice walked to the front of the house to check for emergency crews and when he returned, Woodson’s pulse was weak again, so he resumed CPR.
The funeral is scheduled for Faith United Church of Christ on Sept. 30.
“He was my best friend,” said his daughter Jessica Kane, 33, of Plantation. “He cared a lot about his girls. We were his whole life, our family.”
Philip Woodson died in a 15-foot fall from a ladder while putting up shutters Sept. 7, police said, before Hurricane Irma’s winds hit South Florida.