Worker killed in fall from bridge NEW YORK, March 30 (UPI) -- Searchers found a sweater and hard hat Friday near the spot where a painter plunged from the Throgs Neck Bridge in New York City. Authorities said several hours after John Massas, 35, fell 140 feet that he was almost certainly dead, the New York Daily News reported. Police and the U.S. Coast Guard began a search using helicopters and boats soon after the 8:05 a.m. accident. "It's recovery at this point," a source told the newspaper. By early afternoon, the searchers had discovered the sweater and hard hat floating. Massas, a member of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, was part of a 15-man crew working on the Throgs Neck Bridge. It was his second day on the job. Maria Rosso, the local union's office manager, called him a "nice regular guy working hard to make a living." She said he lived in the Bronx with his wife and daughter and was hoping to move to New Jersey. El Sol Contracting & Construction Corp., the contractor on the repainting job, was cited in 2007 after one of its employees was killed by a fall from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The Throgs Neck, a suspension bridge, connects Queens and the Bronx at the point where the East River meets Long Island Sound.