A woman and her pet dog got nailed by a semi-truck on Tuesday while crossing a street in Manhattan — leaving onlookers stunned as they watched the pooch die before her very eyes.
“She was screaming, crying on the phone,” recalled waitress Jheimmy Garcia, who works at a nearby restaurant and saw the aftermath, along with several others.
“We saw her crawl from underneath the truck,” Garcia said. “It was a little traumatizing. I have a dog myself.”
Barbara Hankerson, 68, had been taking a stroll with her pup — a large Shepherd mix — when the 16-wheeler stuck them both near the corner of W 57th Street and 9th Ave, according to police sources.
They were in the crosswalk and the driver later told cops that he simply didn’t see them. He had been making a right turn from 9th Ave onto 57th, sources said.
“He seemed to feel bad,” explained Cassandra Charles, another waitress at the nearby Morning Star restaurant.
“He was crying,” she added. “He just looked like the bad guy, but it was a big truck, hard for him to stop.”
Authorities questioned the driver and later gave him a summons for failure to lead to a pedestrian, according to sources.
The woman, who complained of torso pain, was transported to St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital, but expected to be okay. Her dog was pronounced dead at the scene.
Additional reporting by Chris Perez