By Alex Christodoulides
Kevin Hrcka was at the Miron Building Supply lot at 1045 Irving Street in Ridgewood at about 12:15 p.m. to meet his father, who works at the masonry yard, one employee said.Company Vice President Derek Messing told 1010WINS that Kevin had taken the forklift for a spin while his father changed clothes after his shift. The boy drove down the lot at full speed, then tried to make too sharp a turn and the vehicle spun out and tipped over onto him, crushing his skull, Messing said.Workers lifted the forklift off the boy, but it was too late, Messing said.Kevin was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. While authorities waited for the medical examiner to arrive, they covered Kevin's body with a yellow tarp. The forklift sat at the far end of the yard, away from the street, near pallets of building materials, bags of concrete and bricks while investigators examined the scene.”I heard somebody scream,” said neighbor Deedee Smith. “They were yelling, saying he was hurt.”The lot is too dangerous a place for children to be, said Vincent Soslowski, 24, a high-loader operator at Miron Building Supply.”If my wife brings the kids here, I don't even let them out of the car,” he said. “There's a foreman in the yard and there's a list of rules he's supposed to follow, and one of them is don't bring your kids into the lot. This company has strict rules you're supposed to abide by, and you're not supposed to have kids here.”Soslowski said Kevin's father, Rob Hrcka, had only been working at the yard a few months.Jose Vadi, who said he had worked for Miron for five years but left the company a year ago, said there was nothing in the company rules against bringing children to the lot.”Kids come in Saturdays with their dads, and they have them behind the counter. They should've made him stay there,” he said.Reach reporter Alex Christodoulides by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
