Miguel Torres (
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GRUESOME SCENE: The covered body of 11-year-old Miguel Torres lies in a Jackson Heights street yesterday as a detective investigates the site where the sixth-grader was crushed to death by a dump truck. (
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A dump-truck driver hit and killed a Queens sixth-grader a block away from the child’s school yesterday — then drove off without stopping because he was unaware of the tragedy, sources said.
The white truck was hauling a generator at around 8:50 a.m. down 80th Street in Jackson Heights when its rear wheels hit the 11-year-old as it turned onto Northern Boulevard, police said.
The boy, identified as Miguel Torres, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Miguel was in the crosswalk and had the right of way, law-enforcement sources said.
The driver did not know he hit the boy, law-enforcement sources said. He will not face charges but could be cited for a traffic violation, they said.
Miguel was struck and killed as he walked to school to take a field trip to Grand Central Terminal, said his uncle, Lazaro Zubizarreta.
“He was a child that everybody loved and loved everyone,” said Zubizarreta, 58. “He was very happy. He was just a great child.”
The gruesome scene shocked even first responders.
“It was so bad, when the ambulance guy came, he was crying,” said Olga Gonzalez, 52.
“The car hit [Miguel] so hard his shoes came off. I just saw a little kid in the middle of the street, and I just started crying.”
Miguel was a student at IS 145, which was closed for the holidays.
School officials held an assembly yesterday to tell students about the tragedy. The school will offer grief counseling.
“[The principal told us] we have to be careful. Our children have to be careful when crossing the street when there’s a red light,” one seventh-grader said. “The parents have to be with the child at all times and take better care of their child.”
Residents said the intersection is dangerous.
“This is just a bad intersection because drivers don’t really have a clue as to how fast to go,” said Kenneth DiLorenzo, 30, who lives two blocks from the scene.
He said there aren’t enough speed-limit signs along the thoroughfare — though the city installed a center island recently.
Surveillance footage at a nearby deli showed the doomed child buying Pop-Tarts and Sprite at 8:42 a.m. — just minutes before the truck struck him.
It was the third fatal accident in the borough in three days. Two Queens mothers were killed by hit-and-run drivers Wednesday.
Sheena Mathew, 38, was killed crossing Hillside Avenue in Floral Park after picking up a prescription for her husband near her house.
Maria Beria, a 30,-year-old courier, died just steps from her South Jamaica home after a driver hit her as she was unlocking her car door.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Harshbarger