A woman was struck and killed by a cab on the Upper East Side this afternoon, authorities said.
Pelagia Zingatan, 65, who works at nearby Sloan-Kettering medical center, was crossing 69th Street at First Avenue with a friend when a taxi minivan traveling west on 69th Street hit her at the intersection about 1 p.m., witnesses and cops said.
Her friend was able to jump out of the way, but Zingatan was dragged halfway down the street underneath a back tire of the cab, witnesses said.
A group of good Samaritan passers-by helped lift the vehicle off her, they said.
“I heard a screech, and then everybody ran across the street and lifted up the van,” said Jasmine Adams, 21.
Between 15 and 20 people lifted up the cab and pulled Zingatan out. One of them began administering first aid to her.
“They pulled her out, and somebody started giving her compressions,” said Andreas Andreou, the manager at nearby Patsy’s Pizzeria. “She was under the wheel. They were lifting the back of the van.”
Eyewitnesses said the driver was distraught. There were no passengers in the cab.
No criminality is suspected.
Zingatan was rushed in critical condition to New York Cornell Hospital, where she passed away, law-enforcement sources said.