Apr 12, 2008 2:05 pm US/Pacific
SF Woman Killed In Crosswalk By Public Works Truck
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ―
A city of San Francisco Department of Public Works truck struck and killed a 66-year-old woman in a crosswalk at an intersection in the Bayview neighborhood on Friday, according to police.
Investigators said an on-the-job DPW employee, driving the department-issued pickup truck, made a left turn on a green light from eastbound Bacon Street onto northbound Bayshore Boulevard, when the truck struck the woman.
Sgt. Wilfred Williams said the woman was crossing legally in the crosswalk, pushing a cart filled with clothes across the busy street, when she was hit about 8:15 a.m. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene.
The medical examiner's office identified the victim as Florencia Tiongco of San Francisco.
Her family said she worked as a housekeeper at the Hotel Whitcomb in San Francisco for almost two decades so she could send money back to family in her native Philippines. Tiongco had hoped to retire this year.
Tiongco was survived by seven children, 15 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
The Public Works employee driving the truck was not arrested, and police continue to investigate the incident, Williams said.
DPW spokeswoman Christine Falvey said the employee, a 55-year-old woman who was not named, had been delivering street cleaning supplies and was on her way back to the city's operations yard on Cesar Chavez Street when the accident took place.
Falvey said the driver, a general laborer who has been employed by the department for 10 years, was "very upset" about the accident and had been assigned administrative duties while an internal Public Works investigation takes place.
The results of the employee's routine drug and alcohol testing following such the incident were not immediately available, according to Falvey.
"The Department's treating this with the utmost seriousness and will conduct a thorough investigation," Falvey said. "And as a Department, we want to express our heartfelt condolences to Ms. Tiongco's family," she said.
Falvey described the accident as a "very rare occurrence" for the 700-vehicle DPW.
According to Falvey, the last pedestrian fatality involving a Public Works vehicle was in 2000, and previous to that, in 1988.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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