A a 26-year-old doctor on Sunday became the third pedestrian killed this month around 96th Street on the Upper West Side, officials said.
Samantha Lee, an anesthesiology resident at Columbia University Medical Center, was hit by an ambulance in front of her building on 96th between Broadway and West End Avenue, police said.
She was crossing 96th — mid-block between Broadway and West End — when she was clipped by the driver’s-side mirror of a westbound St. Luke’s Hospital ambulance at 4:45 a.m., police said.
Lee landed face down in eastbound lanes when she was run over by a red, four-door Dodge Charger, officials said.
She was pronounced dead at the scene. The drivers weren’t charged.
The accident follows the Jan. 10 death of 9-year-old Cooper Stock, who was struck by a taxi on 97th Street and West End Avenue while crossing with his dad.
The driver was issued only a summons and got to keep his hack license.
That tragedy happened moments after a tour bus dragged Alexander Shear to his death on 96th between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.
Lee had graduated from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine this past June, hospital and school officials said Sunday.
She grew up in Sunnyvale, Calif., and did her undergraduate work at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley, UCSD officials said.
“Samantha was an outstanding student whose warmth and compassion brightened the lives of her patients and our school community,” said Dr. Carolyn Kelly, associate dean for admissions and student affairs at the UCSD School of Medicine.
The deaths have prompted the NYPD to step up enforcement of jaywalking laws near 96th Street and Broadway.
George Engel, 65, a resident of Lee’s building, said he jaywalked Sunday where she was killed.
“People are frustrated with that light not working properly,” he said. “I cross here because otherwise I have to wait at the ‘don’t walk’ for a ridiculous amount of time.
“Now that I know one of my neighbors was killed doing this, I don’t know. People fly down this block. They’re driving 50 miles per hour here.”
Additional reporting by David K. Li and Aaron Short
