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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.
“His wife came running to get me,” Kubilas told Reuters. “By the
time I got there, he was not too good. I got half the stone off
him. It must have been adrenaline.”
A police officer and ambulance arrived almost immediately and
helped him wrestle the rest of the 4-foot by 4-foot stone off
Woytack, Kubilas said, but it was too late to save him.
“It’s a tragic thing,” Kubilas said. “There’s nothing you could
do.”
Woytack and his wife visited the cemetery several times each
year to decorate the family grave, Kubilas said.
(Reporting by David DeKok; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Eric
Walsh)
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