Contractor Killed in Building Collapse

A Long Beach contractor died Tuesday morning after an empty brick building collapsed on him.

Dimitrios Zorbas, 64, owner of Pegasus Construction, was reinforcing the building to resist earthquakes. His two employees, Rigoberto Abarca, 38, and Augustine Martinez, 35, escaped uninjured.

The men had been refurbishing the building at 825 W. Vernon Ave. in southwest Los Angeles for more than two weeks. About 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, a pillar suddenly collapsed, causing the brick front wall to cave in and the roof to crumble, fire officials said.

“I heard the noise, and everything came down,” Abarca said.

Hundreds of bricks spilled onto the sidewalk. The debris immediately crushed and buried Zorbas, who authorities believe was standing in front of the building. Abarca and Martinez, both of Los Angeles, were on the roof when the building began to give way. They scrambled to the rear and waited for help to arrive before climbing down.

Emergency room doctors at California Hospital Medical Center spent 20 minutes attempting to revive Zorbas. He was declared dead just before noon, according to a hospital spokesman.

Though the surviving workers said no other people were in the building, firefighters continued to search through the rubble because neighbors had reported seeing additional workers on previous days.

After several hours using dogs to sniff for survivors and a high-tech camera to peek through cracks and crevices, they reported finding no one.

Fire officials believe that the men may have inadvertently destabilized the building when they dug underneath it. “Once the foundation was compromised, then we had a whole collapse,” said Fire Capt. Steve Ruda. “When you are working with a building this old, conditions are always dangerous.”

The building was constructed in 1916 and a brick front was added in 1923, according to records. The most recent owners listed were Los Angeles residents Kenneth and Diana Baxter, who had recently borrowed $100,000 from Community Commerce Bank. They could not be reached Tuesday.

Sandwiched between a parking garage and a hamburger restaurant, the building formerly housed Auto Dynamics and was being remodeled for another auto repair shop, Zorbas’ daughter said.

The city issued the Baxters a building permit May 2 for the seismic retrofit. The city Department of Building and Safety conducted an inspection June 13 and did not discover any problems, bureau chief David Keim said. The department is investigating the accident.

Dean Fryer, a spokesman for Cal/OSHA in San Francisco, said state safety officials are also investigating. Fryer said the agency, which oversees worker safety regulations, will evaluate whether the men were trained properly and whether they were using appropriate equipment.

Zorbas, who emigrated from Greece 25 years ago, had been working in construction since he was a teenager and started Pegasus in 1998. The father of three was an avid soccer and basketball fan and spent his free time caring for his grandchildren.

His daughter, Georgia Zorbas-Muldoon, 31, said she heard about the accident on the morning news. “We were hoping it wasn’t my father,” she said tearfully Tuesday afternoon. “We’re still in shock.”

Zorbas-Muldoon and her family gathered at their Long Beach home, and she said they are bewildered about why there was an accident less than two weeks after the site had been inspected and cleared.

“It was signed off,” she said. “We never expected something like this to happen to this building.”