Valiant effort

Witness tried to save boy, 9, run over by cab

A DRIVER who saw a cabbie run down a 9-year-old boy in Manhattan tried to save the dying child as the boy’s overcome father looked on.

Ramon Gonzalez was driving just behind the yellow cab as it turned left off 97th St. onto West End Ave. about 9:05 p.m. Friday, and saw young Cooper Stock in the crosswalk holding hands with his dad.

The oblivious cabbie slammed right into the boy and his father.

“He had to be distracted because there’s no way he could not see them, if I did,” Gonzalez, 46, said of the cabbie.

“The father grabbed his son. They were both on the hood of the car for a second. The father fell off the passenger side. The son went underneath the driver’s-side tire, first the front one, then the rear.”

The cabbie didn’t brake until after he’d run over the boy with both wheels, according to Gonzalez, who lives in Chelsea and is the assistant director of an educational nonprofit.

“He hit him and continued straight on. It almost looked like he was going to crash into some parked cars. Then he stopped.”

Young Cooper’s crushed body lay on the ground.

“The father picked the boy up,” Gonzalez said.

“He said, ‘Cooper wake up! Oh my God, oh my God!’ He placed the child on the hood of f my car. I tried to help the little boy because he was choking on his own blood.”

But there was lit- tle anyone could do.

“He was totally covered in blood,” said Gonzalez.

“The tires ran over his chest. He probably got broken ribs. He probably got a punctured lung. I put him on his side and let fluids come out of his mouth.”

Gonzalez called 911 while checking the boy’s pulse. His own son, who is just 3, tearfully watched from the back seat of their Nissan Rogue.

“It was a steady pulse,” Gonzalez said. “He had labored breathing.” An ambulance took Cooper to St. Ramon Gonzalez (near l.) tried to save 9-year-old Cooper Stock (far l.) after he was hit by taxi

Friday. Luke’s Hospital, where he died. His dad, Dr. Richard Stock, a radiation oncologist whose patient list includes former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, suffered a minor leg injury.

“It was a little boy who didn’t get to live his life,” said Gonzalez. “One second you’re crossing the street with your dad, the next second you’re fighting to live.”

The unidentified cabbie was ticketed for failing to yield but has not been charged with a crime, cops said Saturday.

Cooper was an avid Knicks fan who loved going to games with his dad. Tearful friends and relatives streamed in and out of the family’s apartment Saturday.

Neighbor Marlene Lieberman, 60, said she was hit by a car at the same intersection in June.

“They’re speeding and cutting corners,” she said of the drivers.