New York City police are trying to figure out what caused a garbage truck to lose control and set off a chain reaction that left one person dead.
Wild surveillance video of the crash shows the out-of-control truck striking multiple cars on First Avenue in East Harlem at around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The truck hit an unoccupied Kia Forte parked at the intersection of 101st Street and First Avenue, sending the sedan up over the curb and into scaffolding outside of a NYCHA building at 345 E. 101st St.
Crash leads to fatal scaffolding collapse
A woman underneath the scaffolding was killed when it came crashing down.
Her name has not been released, but a man who works at a smoke shop near the scene said she was a fixture on the block.
“You would see her every morning going to the fire hydrant to get water to feed the plants,” Jose Martin said. “Just sucks, because there’s a person who cared.”
The crash also left three people hospitalized with minor injuries — another pedestrian, the 47-year-old truck driver and a 50-year-old passenger.
“It looked like a massacre”
Neighbors were instantly rattled.
“Immediately woke me up. I figured something very big had happened,” Sarah Barbey said.
“Confusion. I just saw, like, it looked like a massacre, like a movie,” Timothy Manley said.
The city’s Department of Buildings responded to the scene to check the NYCHA building’s structural integrity after the crash.
Truck owned by New Jersey-based company
The garbage truck is owned and operated by the New Jersey-based company Classic Recycling, which specializes in waste management in the New York City area.
“We are continuing to gather information about his tragic accident and are unable to provide further details at this time,” a spokesperson for Classic Recycling said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear if the accident was weather-related or due to human error.
There have been no charges filed or arrests made at this time.
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