A 77-year-old man on his way to the doctor was killed when an out-of-control flatbed truck carrying stacks of wooden pallets veered onto a Chinatown sidewalk and struck three people Thursday, cops and the victim’s son-in-law said.
The 66-year-old driver of the Chevrolet truck had just crossed the Manhattan Bridge and was heading west on Canal St. when he made a right turn onto the Bowery and vaulted the sidewalk about 10 a.m., cops said.
Yong Wong, 52, was taking her elderly father, 77-year-old Ting Jun Ye, to a doctor’s appointment when they were struck while waiting to cross the street, Wong’s husband said.
“The truck came from the Manhattan Bridge very fast. My wife is very careful, but she didn’t see the truck coming,” Kin Fai Wong, 77, said.
Video obtained by the Daily News shows the truck veer onto the curb where it hits Ye and his daughter, a stack of wood pallets hanging off the truck’s flatbed striking the pair as it speeds past.
The impact sends the two flying down the sidewalk, where they slam into another woman, 71, who falls to the pavement with them, the footage shows.
Another man narrowly missed being struck, leaping from the truck’s path at the last moment, cops said.
After striking the pedestrians, the truck driver continued up the Bowery, sideswiping a van a block away near Hester St., cops said.
Another video shows the truck strike the van and then glance off a box truck before rolling to a stop.
Medics rushed the three pedestrians to Bellevue Hospital, where Ye died and the elderly woman was listed in critical but stable condition. The crash victim’s daughter is expected to recover.
“I’m so sad, man. How can you kill someone?” Wong asked. “My father-in-law is dead, and we’re only lucky to have my wife still alive.”
“Her injuries are internal,” he said about his wife’s recovery. “It’s a lot of blood. (The truck) did a lot of damage.”
Ye was long retired, while his daughter worked as a home health attendant.
“He was a good man,” Wong said of his father-in-law.
A worker at a nearby salon said he heard a “very loud noise” and looked up to witness the tail end of the crash.
“This pallet truck just slid across the street and stopped. It kind of lost control,” the 33-year-old worker, who gave his name as Erick, said. “The driver just jumped out of the car, and then I saw him use his phone and call someone and the NYPD showed up in a few minutes.”
“He was just standing there looking at his phone.”
A security guard working at a nearby building said he saw the victims scattered across the sidewalk.
“They were lying on the sidewalk,” said the 55-year-old guard, who gave his name as Juan. “The man who died, he was bad. He was lying straight on the floor. Face up. He wasn’t conscious. They were giving him CPR. They were trying to bring him through. It was ugly.”
“The lady was near the old man’s head. The lady was on her knees crying. She was shocked.”
The 47-year-old man behind the wheel of the van was taken to the same hospital in stable condition.
The truck was hauling a large load of wooden pallets. It had four flat tires and a cracked windshield after the crash.
The truck driver remained at the scene and was taken into police custody.
After requesting a lawyer, the driver told investigators he lost control of the truck after the brakes failed.
He was not immediately criminally charged. Investigators want to test the vehicle to confirm the driver’s claim about the mechanical malfunction. Cops on Thursday issued the driver several vehicular summonses relating to the condition of the truck, not his driving, police said.
The pedestrians were struck at nearly the exact spot where just over a year ago a speeding driver of a stolen Chevrolet Malibu slammed into a bicyclist and a woman sitting on a bench near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, killing both of them.
Autumn Romero, 23, was charged with murder and related charges for the July 19, 2025, crash that claimed the lives of 63-year-old May Kwok as she sat on a bench at the intersection of Canal St. and Bowery and Kevin Cruickshank, 55, as he rode his bike on the sidewalk near the mouth of the bridge.
Romero was behind the wheel of the stolen Chevrolet Malibu that Lecraft had originally rented, authorities said. She barreled over the bridge, driving 100 mph, more than double the speed limit, before careening into Kwok and Cruickshank.
The driver hit Cruickshank first, throwing him off his bicycle and across the intersection. Kwok was then thrown from the bench, her legs ripped from her body, according to authorities, before Romero rammed into a parked NYPD auxiliary van.
The disposition of the case against Romero was not immediately clear Thursday.
