NYC mom dies after 2,000-pound headstone falls on her, family sues Staten Island cemetery
A Staten Island woman was killed after a 2,000-pound gravestone fell on her while she was working in a Graniteville cemetery, according to a lawsuit filed by her family. Elvira Navarro, 53, mom-of-five, was tending to graves alongside her son, Anthony Rosales, at Baron Hirsch Cemetery on October 28, 2021, when the fatal mishap happened.
According to the lawsuit, Navarro and her son were both employed by a third party to work at the Staten Island burial ground. The 53-year-old died after being rushed to Richmond University Medical Center the same day, where she died of her injuries. Details of the incident are scarce, as it is unclear how or where in the 80-acre cemetery, the incident unfolded.
RELATED ARTICLES
NJ woman accuses Laurel Grove Cemetery of burying body on top of her sister's grave in viral video
GRISLY HISTORY: Roman-era skeletons found with heads hacked off and bricks in skulls
Navarro’s family on February 11, filed a negligence lawsuit against the Baron Hirsch Cemetery Association in Manhattan Supreme Court, accusing it of failing to maintain a safe environment for its workers. As per the court documents, the family is seeking unspecified damages. The Jewish cemetery established in 1899 features about 500 plots and is home to many Holocaust survivors and has been the target of vandals for years, according to the Staten Island Advance.
The lawsuit accuses the cemetery of "causing, permitting, and allowing the Cemetery to become and remain in a dangerous, hazardous, trap-like condition." The lawsuit also claims that Rosales' mental and physical health was greatly affected by his mother's death, which he witnessed, undergoing "severe and permanent injuries, a shock to his nervous system, psychological trauma and has been caused to suffer severe physical pain and mental anguish."
"I’m devastated to hear that news," said Rabbi Andrew Schultz, executive director of the Community Alliance for Jewish-Affiliated Cemeteries, or CAJAC, a group which helped clean up about four acres of the poison ivy-plagued cemetery about a decade ago. Referring to Navarro's death, Rabbi said, "That’s what we worry about the most, as an organization. That is the greatest fear we have. That’s why in the work we do, one of the very first things we do is making sure the stones are secure". Talking about how the large gravestones can be a hazard, he said: "It could happen at even the best-maintained cemeteries; you will see stones that are leaning."
Among notables buried at Baron Hirsch are members of the powerful Newhouse publishing family; American theater producer Joseph Papp, who died in 1991; composer Elliot Willensky, and Grand Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner, who died in 1925 and whose grave still draws hundreds of visitors.