A beloved 91-year-old Bronx great-grandmother was run over and killed by a dump truck yesterday near her Bedford Park home, police said.
Carmen Rivera was hit by the truck as it pulled out into westbound traffic on East 194th Street near Briggs Avenue at about 1 p.m. She died at the scene.
“I just saw her this morning,” said Rivera’s tearful great-granddaughter Yolanda Cruz, 9. “I loved the way she’d just look at me and I’d feel safe.”
Yolanda’s mother, Anabel Davio, consoled her daughter, saying, “She’s in a better place. We’re going to see her again.”
The driver probably never saw Rivera, said Felix Burgoy, who owns a deli near the accident scene.
“I guess when the guy got inside to move the truck, she was in his blind spot,” Burgoy said.
He noted that Rivera was only about 5-foot-2, and the driver, who was not charged, wasn’t aware he hit her.
“The truck was huge,” Burgoy said. “It had to be about 26 tons. I heard him say, ‘I didn’t see her! I didn’t see her!’ ”
Family and neighbors described Rivera as a very active woman who visited her wheelchair-bound son almost every week and often went to Atlantic City.
“Everybody in the building loved her,” said a neighbor, Eradio Bermudez, 66.
“She looked very good [for her age] because she would go outside every day.”