Sanit worker on job killed by hit-and-run

A sanitation worker struck by a hit-andrun driver while helping his co-worker back their garbage truck down a Brooklyn street has died, police said Sunday.

Cops said Cogent Waste Solutions employee Angel Aguilar-Duran, 52, was initially expected to survive after a minivan driver on Saturday struck and pinned him under her vehicle then calmly walked away as if nothing happened. But Aguilar-Duran couldn’t be saved after medics rushed him to Bellevue Hospital, authorities said Sunday.

Aguilar-Duran was guiding his co-worker down Hope St. in Williamsburg about 8 a.m. on Saturday when he was struck. He was lucid enough after the crash to tell police a woman driving the minivan, a 2005 Honda Odyssey, swerved around a vehicle to pass the truck and struck him. He was dragged 50 feet.

“He was under the wheels and she dragged him,” Alessandro Accardo, his co-worker, said. “His head is on the ground and his face is all cut up and everything is really bad.”

The two employees were near the end of their shift.

“All of us at Cogent Waste Solutions are grieving for the loss of our friend and co-worker Angel Aguilar. Angel was beloved by all who were fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend time with him,” a company spokesman said Sunday, adding that a fund for the family was being put together.

“A reward will also be established for information leading to the arrest of the hit-and-run driver who struck Angel,” the spokesman said.

Witnesses told the Daily News the passenger in the minivan got out of the car and tried to yank Aguilar-Duran from under the vehicle, but he couldn’t be moved. He went to get a jack to lift the car when the driver pulled the keys out of the van and calmly walked away. The passenger walked off soon after, abandoning the vehicle.

“[Aguilar-Duran] was moaning but he wasn’t saying anything,” a neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said. “His face was incredibly bloody and mangled.”

“The woman driving the car got her keys out and started walking away,” the neighbor said. “It suddenly became clear that she wasn’t coming back and she didn’t even run.”

The crowd of people were yelling at the passenger to stay at the scene, but he followed the driver, according to witnesses.

The minivan was left in the street until a tow truck could pull it away. Police are seeking the driver and passenger..