HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER KILLS PEDESTRIAN IN MANHATTAN

From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Brooklyn Accident Lawyer)

A woman was killed today crossing an Upper West Side intersection with groceries in her arms - mowed down by a sports car that tried to flee the scene, witnesses and sources said.

The victim - who wasn't immediately identified - was fatally struck by a white Dodge Charger at about 4 p.m. while crossing West 93rd Street where it crosses Columbus Avenue. Witnesses said the pedestrian wasn't in the crosswalk. The car slammed into the woman, tossing her body into the air in front of horrified onlookers.

Paramedics raced to the scene, but the woman couldn't be saved. The victim was rushed to St. Luke's Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

Police haven't released the identities of the 24-year-old driver or the dead woman. The motorist was in custody Friday night. Charges were pending. The Charger's windshield was smashed afer slamming into the pedestrian.

"It was so loud that I heard it from my window. I heard the thud," said H.A. Rigney, who lives in a building near the tragic accident scene. "She was thrown 20 feet from the crosswalk. Her feet were bare."

"She was laying there like a ragdoll," Rigney added. "All of her groceries were all over the street and her shoes were knocked off."

"The car was going really fast down 93rd St., much faster than normal," said Lisette Gomez, 30, who saw the crash as she stood behind the counter of a nearby dry cleaner. "The car hit the lady and she flew up in the air as high as a streetlight. Then she landed between two cars."

Christopher Farmer, 33, was shaken.

"It's definitely a sobering thing to see," Farmer said.

Bystanders crowded around the injured woman as she lay in the street.

The driver continued on for about a block before stopping at Columbus and Amsterdam Avenue after a good Samaritan in a green Jets jacket ran after her and yelled for her to stop, witnesses added. "The guy [in the Jets jacket] told me that the lady was probably dead and asked me to call 911. He was really upset," said a doorman who works nearby.

"It was my light. It was my light," the driver sobbed on a cell phone video shot by another witness.