An 82-year-old construction worker is dead after police in Chester, New Hampshire, say he got caught inside the engine of a crane Monday night.
Chester police identified the worker as Alfred Rongone.
"It appears he was performing maintenance on the machine and the machine was running at the time," explained Chester Police Sgt. William Sable. "He was pulled into the machine and suffered life-threatening injuries."
The accident happened at Mill Pine Village, a retirement community still being developed in Chester. The property owner was the one who found him and called the police.
"The owner that found him was very distraught but was very helpful at the same time," said Sable.
Rongone started working on cranes when he was 18-years-old, buying the equipment and going into business with his father.
For more than six decades, Alfred Rongone and Sons Incorporated worked on sites across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.
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When Rongone didn't make it home to Wilmington, Massachusetts, for dinner Monday night, his family knew something wasn’t right.
"To me, it's a little bit of a shock that it was an accident that took him," said Rongone's son Allen. "He was always so careful, he was always safety minded."
Despite his age, Allen Rongone said his dad never had plans to retire.
"That was the only thing that kept him going," Allen Rongone said. "That was his life, was his work."
Rongone's family is finding some comfort knowing their dad was strong enough to work until the day he died – and died doing what he loved.
"He would've been happy with going out that way," Allen Rongone said. "Yup, right there on his crane."
NBC10 Boston reached out to the property owner, Wayne Britton, but hasn't yet heard back.
Police say their investigation is complete and determined it was just a horrible accident and no foul play is suspected.
