Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

JOHNSTON -- A 57-year-old Johnston man who loved to fix anything and everything died when his latest project -- a 1996 Pontiac Grand Am -- fell off a jack as he worked on it.

The car landed on Robert E. Barkan, who lived on Belfield Drive with his wife, Margaret A. "Peggy" Barkan. She arrived home from work last night around 8:45 p.m. and found the car on top of her husband, according to Johnston Police Maj. Ralph Bubar III.

Margaret Barkan called for help immediately, and police and fire crews responded. The fire department helped lift the car off the man, and the state medical examiner's office took his body to conduct an autopsy, Bubar said.

"He liked to fix everything, and that was what did him in," his wife said today. "He'd say, 'Papa can fix it.'"

Barkan has two daughters, Sonya Kicia of Coventry and Heidi Ahlquist of Cranston, and seven grandchildren. He and his wife had a son, also Robert E. Barkan, who died in 1992 when he was 20 in a four-car crash in Warwick.

To those grandchildren, who range in age from 3 to 19, Barkan was "Papa," but the rest of the family often called him that, too, said his son-in-law, Kevin Kicia, who is married to Sonya. If the grandchildren needed to go fishing, he was there, Sonya Kicia said. If one of the older ones was looking for a car, he'd be searching for a deal on e-Bay.

"It didn't matter what broke -- your toaster or your house -- he was there. Mr Fix-It," she said about her father.

He bought fixer-uppers all the time, Kevin Kicia said. Fixing those cars was a hobby for a man who worked as a tradesman. He was in between jobs right now, but he has worked as a handyman, doing electrical or maintenance work, Kevin Kicia said.

The Barkan home, at 63 Belfield Drive, is a "pretty secluded residence" at the end of a long driveway. No neighbors or passing cars would have seen Barkan under the car, Bubar said.

"It seems pretty clear that somehow the vehicle rolled off the jack while he was underneath it and pinned him underneath it," Bubar said.

Funeral arrangements are not yet complete.

 Tags  Johnston RI Pontiac Grand Am

Comments

IhateWBLQ said:

This is sad :( RIP.

Link | January 6, 2009 4:25 PM
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