Nov 11, 2009 4:47 pm US/Eastern
Elderly Woman Struck By DPW Truck
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
-
-
The accident happened at Tremont and Winter Streets just before 11:30 a.m.
WBZ
An elderly woman suffered life-threatening injuries when she was struck by a Boston Department of Public Works truck at Tremont and Winter Streets on Wednesday.
It happened just before 11:30 a.m.
"Oh my God. It's terrible," said Steve James of Mattapan who said he witnessed the woman being hit.
He and other witnesses said she was not moving after the impact.
The 76-year-old woman was struck at one of the city's busiest pedestrian crossings, next to Park Street station, as people were gathering there for Boston's Veteran's Day parade.
One of them, Freddy LaRossa of Lynn, said the light for traffic was green. "And this woman just started crossing the street, not looking and I looked over and I see her get hit. She went flying and rolling around. The poor girl driving the truck, she started going berserk. She was crying and losing it," LaRossa said.
The driver is a DPW sanitation inspector hired only a few weeks ago.
"All I can say is this is a fairly new employee that we hired a short period of time (ago) but my understanding is the person has a clean driving record," said Dennis Royer, the city's Chief of Public Works & Transportation.
The accident investigation in the middle of Veteran's Day parade route, delayed the parade for about 20 minutes.
A couple of the witnesses familiar with the crosswalk call it dangerous.
"It's a very dangerous intersection. They should probably do something better, especially Park Street being right there, crossing to downtown crossing. It's a dangerous intersection," said Army Reserve Sgt. Michael Lydon of Brighton.
Hazardous as pedestrians say the busy intersection is, many were still crossing against the light there only a couple of hours after the accident.
The public works and transportation chief says the driver involved will kept of the road pending an investigation and put on desk duty when she returns to work.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
Comments