A massive crane collapsed on the Tappan Zee Bridge on Tuesday afternoon, spewing chunks of metal across the aging span and injuring at least four people while halting traffic in both directions, authorities said.
“The crane came down right in front of me,” shaken driver Balam Arana told The Post, adding that he didn’t hear any strange noises or have any warnings beforehand.
“I was driving to Rockland [County]. Suddenly, the truck in front me brakes and had to turn to the left. Right in front of me, there was a small accident, and at the same time, the crane came down,” he said.
“It’s pretty hectic here. They are trying to cut the metal of the crane so they can clean up.’’
He said he felt “lucky, for sure. It could have been me crushed under the crane by seconds.’’
A police official said there did not appear to be any life-threatening injuries, but at least four people were put onto gurneys and taken away as emergency personnel flocked to the bridge, which connects Tarrytown in Westchester County with Nyack in Rockland County.
A witness told The Post that the injured included a construction worker who was in a “cofferdam’’ — a watertight enclosure on the riverbed — when the noon incident occurred.
The worker was there as the crane above him was driving piles, or long poles, into the foundation of the new span being erected alongside the Tappan Zee, the source said.
He was working on the side of the new bridge that will be used for eastbound traffic into Westchester from Rockland, on its southermost lane, the source added.
The boom and crane were on a section of the new bridge when the boom collapsed and the crane fell, landing across all six lanes of the Tappan Zee next to it and possibly knocking a chunk of concrete off the old span’s outer barrier.
There was the explosive sound of “metal hitting metal’’ when the crane’s long red metal arm hit the Tappan Zee, said the source, who was near the scene at the time.
The construction worker was knocked down but was conscious and alert, the source said.
An emergency boat brought him from the cofferdam to a pier off an emergency access road on the Rockland side of the river, where an orange gurney was then lowered by rope to the boat and he was hoisted up to a waiting ambulance.
Three other people were hurt in a fender-bender that occurred as a female driver swerved to try to avoid hitting the vehicle in front of her because of the crane collapse, the source and witnesses said.
The police source discounted reports of anyone jumping from the bridge, although eight police emergency boats were at the scene.
The crane’s operator refused medical attention, the police source said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo cut short an event at Letchworth State Park in the Finger Lakes and was flying by helicopter to the bridge, sources said. He was set to hold a 3:15 p.m. press conference at the scene.
A witness told ABC-TV that the crane’s arm “kind of stopped down a little bit, then it crashed, it literally crashed. Luckily there were no cars right under it.”
“I was scared. I’ve never seen an accident like this,’’ the witness told ABC.
“This is a parking lot, basically. We’ve been told to stay in our cars or behind the yellow line. It happened so suddenly.’’
Traffic was a nightmare, promising a disastrous ride home for commuters Tuesday evening and possibly Wednesday.
While all cars stuck on the bridge had been turned around and driven off by around 2:15 p.m., there were still 14 tractor-trailers sitting on the span on the Westchester side.
A state trooper at Exit 9 on I-87 north in Tarrytown said the highway was closed in both directions where he was and while “we’re really just hoping to get it open by rush hour, right now, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.’’
Pinny Friedman, 20, a property manager who was on I-287 north on his way from the west side of the Hudson to a job in Yonkers at the time, said, “A lot of people take that bridge to avoid the [George Washington] Bridge. So now they have to use other routes, and they will have to use the GW Bridge, which already has very bad traffic.”
Aron Gold, 20, a property manager who was in the car with Friedman, stood outside their vehicle watching trucks trying to back off I-287 north, which feeds into the bridge.
“People were standing on the road asking what was going on. They were talking to each other to find out what happened,” he said.
“There is an emergency exit that they were routing cars off of the bridge approach, and they pushed the trailers to one side to get the cars off, and then they started backing up the trucks one by one.
“Some are making U-turns, and some are backing up, and they are holding all of the cars by the entrance ramp to let the trucks off,” he said.
“This just killed my day.”
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan, Priscilla DeGregory and Kate Sheehy