LI man killed in South Carolina accident, family says

A man who grew up on Long Island was killed in South Carolina after being struck by a sport utility vehicle while walking across a highway, his family said Saturday.

At the time of the March 28 accident, Justin Giani, 25, was vacationing with friends near Myrtle Beach.

Giani was walking west across U.S. Highway 501 at 1:20 a.m. when he was hit by a Jeep, according to news reports. He was taken to a hospital where he later died.

The driver and his passenger were not injured, authorities said. Further details were not available from the South Carolina Highway Patrol, which investigated the accident.

The family said Giani was a 2007 graduate of Huntington High School who lived in Centerport before moving to Philadelphia to study finance and marketing at Drexel University.

"He just had a big heart," Jake Giani said of his brother. "He affected a lot of people."

For the past four years he worked for Breaking Glass Pictures, a film distribution company in Philadelphia, where he was president of accounting, said CEO Richard Wolff.

"He was very grounded; took his work very seriously," Wolff said.

At Huntington High, Giani was a star wrestler and team captain, with 101 wins. The team won the state championship when he was a freshman, the family said. Condolences were posted on the Long Island Wrestling Association Facebook page. "He was a tough competitor (a league champ) who always represented the Huntington tradition with pride," one person wrote.

At Drexel, Giani wrestled from 2007 to 2009.

He is also survived by his parents, Joseph and Linda Giani; another brother, Joseph; grandparents, Rose and Lou Giani, and Alice and Francis DelBosco; and a great-grandmother, Connie Fusaro.

A funeral Mass was held last week at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church in Centerport.