An auto shop owner who ran out to get coffee is the latest victim in a string of deadly accidents on New York City roads.
Six people have been struck and killed on NYC streets -- one by a trio of cars -- within a span of just three days. Four of those deaths happened in less than 24 hours, starting Thursday afternoon.
The deadly stretch began in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Thursday afternoon when a box truck slammed in 85-year-old man. Brendan Gill was crossing Third Avenue and 39th Street when he was hit by a box truck. The octogenarian later died at a hospital.
That night a 26-year-old on a SoHo crosswalk died when a truck driver backed over her. Witnesses said she was in the crosswalk when she was hit; horrified onlookers described hearing a "thud." Police say that woman was pronounced dead at the intersection.
Then, early Friday, a man was killed by a private sanitation truck in Hell's Kitchen at West 49th Street and Tenth Avenue. Police responded to a 911 call of a vehicle striking a pedestrian in the area at around 4:45 a.m. When the arrived, police say a man lying on the street. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
Fifty-eight-year-old Robert Alford, from Plainfield, New Jersey, was the driver of the sanitation truck. He remained at the scene of the incident, police say. He was subsequently charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care. Attorney information for Alford was not immediately available.
Finally, about an hour later in Gowanus, Andreas Stylianou died just steps away from the auto body shop he ran for 20 years. He was hit by three cars mid-block on Third Avenue, near Seventh Street. Hector Vasquez remembered Stylianou. “When you know someone. You see them everyday. And it comes to this. You know. Around the holidays. It’s sad.”
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It's not clear how he was hit by three separate vehicles, but those drivers, along with the drivers in the other cases, all stayed at their respective scenes. No charges have been filed.
Previously, a 75-year-old woman was fatally hit by car at 52nd Street near 8th Avenue in Sunset Park on Wednesday morning.
And Zhisheng Lin, 67, was killed by a man pulling into a parking garage around on Sanford Avenue in Flushing.
The Collision Investigation Squad is continuing its investigation.
