Truck kills 83-yr.-old

AN 83-YEAR-OLD man died a day after he was struck by a pickup truck outside his Kips Bay apartment building, police said Friday.

Gilbert DiBernardo was in the crosswalk on Second Ave. near E. 30th St. when he was hit by a Chevrolet Silverado about 4 p.m. Wednesday, witnesses told police.

The light had just turned green for the Silverado when it struck him, witnesses said.

“He hadn’t finished crossing,” said Skender Pervizaj, 43, a doorman at the Kips Bay Towers where DiBernardo lived. “He went flying. I heard the thump. I’m thinking, what do I do, I just saw it happen. I never saw (something like this) happen.”

“I puked, literally, because I heard the thump, heard his body hit the ground,” Pervizaj added. “I didn’t know it was him. One of the guys told me DiBernardo died.”

The 53-year-old driver told police he tried to stop his truck but couldn’t in time. No charges were immediately filed against him.

Medics rushed DiBernardo to Bellevue Hospital with a massive head injury. He died there the next day.

“He’s a slow walker,” Pervizaj said. “Mr. DiBernardo walks hunched over with his hands in his pockets. He never saw it coming.”

Pervizaj said DiBernardo came to the U.S. from Italy and had lived in the building for two decades. The elderly man mostly kept to himself, according to the doorman.

“It’s weird because you see someone every day and now they’re gone. You see someone everyday you get attached. You wish you could do something . ... I’m going to miss him.”