Bus hits light pole, which hits, kills man walking in Brooklyn

A Brooklyn pedestrian was killed in front of his horrified wife and friends — crushed by a light pole toppled by an MTA bus swerving around a broken-down vehicle, police said Tuesday.

Lance Margolin, 59, died at Kings County Hospital on Saturday, two days after he was rushed there with head and body injuries.

He was killed when a 36-year-old bus driver tried to get around a disabled vehicle on Eastern Parkway near Utica Ave. in Crown Heights just past 7 p.m. on Thursday, cops said. The bus’s side mirror struck the pole, toppling it onto Margolin, who was walking by.

“God, I love you,” his wife, Karen Balestire, told WABC-TV. “I didn’t want him to leave me.”

Margolin was walking home from a birthday party with his wife and friends when tragedy struck, Balestire told the station.

“All of a sudden, we heard a bang, so my friend grabbed me and held me until, and then looked, and then I said ‘Oh my God, not Karen’ because it was right by where her and Lance were standing,” one friend, Joanne, told WABC.

“So I ran over, and it was Lance on the floor, and the pole was on top of him.”

The bus driver was not immediately charged but the fatality was still being investigated.

Margolin leaves behind three daughters, said Dan Minc, the family’s lawyer.

MTA bus chief Craig Cipriano said the bus operator who struck the pole has been removed from passenger service.