A box truck crushed a man’s head after he fell onto the street while roughhousing in Brooklyn on Friday, police and witnesses told the Daily News.

The 30-year-old victim was drinking with a friend on 60th St. near Fourth Ave. in Sunset Park when the pair started wrestling shortly before 2:30 p.m., according to a witness.

The victim’s friend shoved him off the sidewalk and into the path of an oncoming truck heading west on 60th St. and then desperately tried to pull him out of harm’s way, the witness said.

“He pushed his friend just as the truck was coming,” said Xochitl Mejia, 36. “As he fell, his friend tried to grab him and pull him back.”

But it was too late for the man to save his friend, and the victim’s head went under the truck’s wheels, Mejia said.

“The truck went right over him,” she said. “He was dead within seconds.”

A crowd looks on after a man was fatally struck by a truck on 60th St. near 4th Ave. in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
A crowd looks on after a man was fatally struck by a truck on 60th St. near Fourth Ave. in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)

Mejia described the man’s gruesome injuries visible as he lay dead on 60th St.

“The wheels went right over his head,” she said. “It was smashed. There was blood coming from his mouth and nose. It was horrible. It was just horrible.”

Medics pronounced the victim dead at the scene.

The 53-year-old truck driver was taken to NYU Langone Hospital in stable condition, cops said.

The victim leaves behind one child, according to a relative.

“He was a good man,” the family member told a Daily News reporter at the scene.

The NYPD’s Highway Collision Investigation Squad will investigate the crash. There were no arrests.

Originally Published: November 15, 2024 at 6:43 PM EST

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