A Pennsylvania man was helping decorate his mother-in-law’s tombstone ahead of the Easter holiday when it suddenly toppled over, pinning him underneath and killing him, a cemetery caretaker said.
The 400-pound stone fatally injured Stephen Woytack, 74, of Scranton, said Edward Kubilas, caretaker of St. Joseph’s Catholic Cemetery in the eastern Pennsylvania town of Throop, just outside of Scranton.
On Monday morning, Woytack was kneeling next to the grave marker while his wife tied on a cross on the other side, Kubilas said.
The stone toppled without warning in the soft spring ground.
A police officer and ambulance arrived almost immediately and helped him wrestle the rest of the 4-foot by 4-foot stone off Woytack, but it was too late to save him.
It was a tragic thing, There was nothing that could be done.
Woytack and his wife used to visit the cemetery several times each year to decorate the family grave.
