US investigators have said that the death of a Guyanese immigrant who fell from an escalator at Shea Stadium on Tuesday night was accidental.
According to the New York Daily News investigators believe that Antonio Narainasami, 36, had been perched on the escalator’s rail moments before losing his balance and plunging four storeys to his death after the Mets game. The paper quoted a police source as saying that several witnesses said they saw Narainasami “start to play on the escalator before he fell. It’s an unfortunate accident.”
However, Narainasami’s pregnant wife Ambeeka disputes this claim; saying that her husband would not have been so reckless in front of their 14 and nine-year-old daughters. Outside their Cypress Hills, Brooklyn home, Ambeeka, who could barely speak through her tears said, “It is a shock to me [and] my family. We were looking forward to our third child, which is a boy.”
According to the paper, the escalators at the stadium are customarily turned off in the seventh inning to encourage fans to leave via the long walkways. Though the 120-foot-long escalator remained accessible to fans after the game, its steps were not moving when Narainasami boarded it near the mezzanine’s Section 20, officials said. He was just in front of his elder daughter Emily when he fell off the side and landed on another escalator below.
“It’s so different without him not coming home,” the eight-grader said, adding that “He gave us everything we asked for. He took us out for the last time.”
The paper said Narainasami was an immigrant who worked as an installer of heating and air-conditioning systems. He also captained the Legend Cricket Club and was an avid Mets fan, his family said. In a statement the Mets extended condolences to the family.
The paper said a Buildings Department spokeswoman said the escalators were last inspected on March 8.
In the past 25 years, two New York fans have died at baseball games – one at Shea in 1985 and on at Yankee Stadium in 1999 – when they fell off the railing of an escalator.
