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Woman Fatally Struck by City Bus While Retrieving Cellphone From Street

By  Serena Dai and Janon Fisher | September 17, 2014 3:42pm 

 A woman was fatally struck by an MTA bus in Bed-Stuy after trying to pick up her dropped cell phone.
Woman Fatally Struck by City Bus in Bed-Stuy
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BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A woman was struck and killed by a city bus on Bedford Avenue when she went to retrieve her dropped cellphone from the street, witnesses and officials said.

The woman, who had just stepped off the B44 bus in front of 1229 Bedford Ave. about 1:30 p.m., fell and hit the pavement face first as the bus pulled out of the stop, witnesses said.

The victim, in her 50s, was run over by the right rear wheel of the articulated Select bus, the NYPD said.

"The same bus hit her," witness Adaline Gattling, 48, said. "Eventually, people yelled out at the bus, 'You hit somebody.' It was crazy, chaotic."

The driver stopped half a block away, witnesses said.

"He did not know what happened," witness Pedro Fuentes, 40, said of the driver. "He was shakey. He was nervous."

The woman apparently died instantly.

"She stopped moving immediately," said a street vendor who only gave her name as Abdul-Hakim. "Her head was crushed. It was on the pavement face down. I knew she was gone."

An investigation into the incident is ongoing, police said.