WEST BABYLON, N.Y. (AP) – A family was in mourning and trying to comfort a son after the young man ran over his father with a payloader.

“I don’t know how to help my son. He’s feeling so hurt right now,” said Maria Remache, 54, the victim’s widow. “…This is so sad. We are all going to miss his father.”

Luis Marquez, 25, was unaware that he had hit his father, Miguel Marquez, 58, until the younger man saw his father lying on the ground, police said.

When the machine struck something around 1:30 a.m. Friday at the Omni Recycling plant in West Babylon, “I thought it was garbage,” Luis Marquez said.

But it was his father, an Ecuadorian immigrant who lived in Brooklyn, was married 36 years and had six children.

“Everybody was yelling. Everybody was crying. No one could believe what happened,” said Jose Marquez, another of the victim’s sons. Jose Marquez also works at the plant.

The machine’s six-foot wheels were taller than Miguel Marquez, Suffolk County Police Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick said.

“If you get in the wrong spot, you are not going to be visible,” he said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was investigating the accident. A man answering the telephone at the Omni plant had no comment.

“The transfer station business is a dangerous environment,” said Mike Hellstrom, the business manager of Laborers Local 108, a union representing the recycling and waste industries.

“There is a lot of mechanized machinery. It’s loud and it’s dirty, and it’s a tough place to work,” Hellstrom said.

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