The Grenadian Community in New York and family and friends in Grenada have lost one of their own as Grenadian born US Resident KENNIE LESSIE was crushed to death by an elevator while trying to retrieve a tenant’s cell phone last Friday afternoon.
According to police the incident happened around 1:15 p.m. in an apartment building on Parkside Ave. near Flatbush Ave. in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, near the southeast corner of Prospect Park.
According to the Department of Buildings and police, Assistant Superintendent Kennie Lessie, 64, and a tenant entered the elevator machine room in the basement to find a cell phone that had apparently fallen down the shaft.
The elevator was in the basement at the time, but was then called to another floor, at which point Lessie was “caught in the moving hoist ropes and elevator sheave.”
The sheave is the circular device around which the ropes move.
Authorities say the 36-year-old tenant suffered minor injuries to his finger when trying to free the victim. Eddie Adis, the Head Superintendent of the 126-unit complex, told the Daily News he checked the basement after tenants alerted him of a loud noise.
Lessie had worked in the building for nearly 30 years, and took the job after moving to New York from Grenada in 1992, his mourning wife Allison Williams said Friday night.
