Halfmoon, N.Y. — A Valvoline employee died days after he was crushed between cars at a shop in Upstate New York.
The deadly accident happened at 11:52 a.m. on Saturday at the Valvoline auto maintenance shop at 1682 U.S. Route 9 in Halfmoon, a town in Saratoga County, the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Two vehicles were waiting in line behind the back garage door to enter the shop when the second vehicle in line suddenly “accelerated rapidly,” deputies said.
The vehicle hit Sikander Samuel, a Valvoline worker, and pushed him into the back of the first vehicle in line — pinning the man between the two cars, deputies said.
The crash pushed the first vehicle in line through Valvoline’s rear glass garage and into a car that was being serviced inside the garage, deputies said. The car inside the garage was then forced through the shop’s front glass door.
Samuel, 50, of Schenectady, was rushed by Clifton Park-Halfmoon EMS to Albany Medical Center with serious injuries. He died Monday in the Albany hospital.
Deputies have identified Erik J. Lundgren as the driver of the vehicle that pinned Samuel. The 63-year-old Schagticoke man is cooperating with investigators, the sheriff’s office said.
No charges were immediately announced.
Valvoline’s building was left with “extensive damage” from the crash, deputies said, and was forced to close after the accident.
Halfmoon, a town in Saratoga County, is about 30 minutes north of Albany and 30 minutes south of Saratoga Springs in the Capital Region.
Samantha House is a social media producer and features writer for Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard and NYUP.com. In her nearly 15 years as a journalist, she has covered topics ranging from crime, courts and… more
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