An elderly Brooklyn pedestrian was killed in a gruesome hit-and-run after a teen driver lost control of his speeding Tesla, mowing the victim down on a sidewalk before trying to flee, police said Thursday.
An eyewitness recalled seeing the victim, both his legs torn off by the lethal impact, lying on the street before the 17-year-old driver was arrested a short distance away after bolting from his mangled vehicle.
“He looked like he was already going out,” Michael Roshan, who ran outside with his wife after the couple heard screeching tires and a loud boom, said of the victim. “One leg was seven to eight feet away, the other leg was somewhere.”
The young driver was zipping north on Ocean Parkway in Midwood when he lost control, with the Tesla vaulting the curb near Avenue M about 9:20 p.m. Wednesday and plowing into 76-year-old Milorad Rajacic, cops said.
“Everybody was shocked,” the victim’s wife Emilia told the Us.Mistertruth, adding her husband was walking home from work at his small real estate business when killed just three blocks from their residence.
The Tesla continued to spin out of control until it struck a traffic signal pole, upending it before crashing into a parked motorcycle and a bench on the median where a 24-year-old man was sitting.
The man on the bench suffered minor injuries to his legs after he was struck by the falling pole.
The teen, charged with leaving the scene of a fatal accident, was not identified due to his age, police said.
The eyewitness’ wife, Esther Roshan, described the intersection flanked on either side by rows of benches and tree-lined pedestrians paths as the site of frequent prior car crashes.
“It’s a family-friendly block, kids sit there all the time,” said Esther, pointing to the shattered bench demolished in the crash. “It’s a horrible intersection. There’s an accident every month.”
Medics took both victims to Maimonides Medical Center, where Rajacic died.