Search ends for fallen bridge worker

Coast Guard officials have suspended the search for a construction worker from a Long Island painting company who slipped from a scaffold platform under the Throgs Neck Bridge and fell into the East River on Friday.

The worker, identified in news reports as John Massas, 35, of the Bronx, is presumed dead as he likely would not have survived in the water for longer than eight and a half hours, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Erik Swanson based in Manhattan..

"The search has been suspended and will not resume unless something changes, like clothes are found," Swanson said.

Authorities, including the Coast Guard and New York Police Department harbor units, searched about 11 square miles for 13 hours Friday but could not locate Massas, agency officials said.

The accident occurred shortly after 8 a.m. on Friday as Massas adjusted or changed a safety harness, police said. The clearance between the waterline and road deck is 142 feet at mean high tide, records show. A fall from under the bridge deck would be more than 100 feet.

Massas, who was married with three children, worked for the Islandia-based Nuco Painting Corp., a subcontractor hired by El Sol Contracting & Construction of Maspeth, Queens. Officials from neither company returned calls for comment.