A Brooklyn gas station clerk who stopped to get groceries on his way home from work wound up killed by hit-and-run driver Friday night, police and the victim's girlfriend said.
Francis Perez, 28, was crossing Avenue V between Ford and Coyle Sts. in Sheepshead Bay at about 8 p.m - holding a bag of sodas and snacks for his eight-year-old son - when a blue Toyota SUV or minivan slammed into him.
After the father, who worked at a nearby Mobil station, fell to the ground, the heartless driver sped away, witnesses said.
“The guy flew in the air, and then the (driver)… stopped at that corner and just drove off,” said witness Roberta Strickland, 30.
Perez, who lived around the corner, was rushed to Coney Island Hospital but could not be saved.
His devastated girlfriend, Sandra Mcillwain, 50, came back to the scene late Friday night to retrieve his wallet and shoes.
"He had the biggest heart. Ask anyone around here," she said, as tears streamed down her face. "I'm hurting."
Perez, originally from the Dominican Republic, had an eight-year-old son, Francis Jr., Mcillwain said.
The gas station worker had stopped into a grocery store to grab sodas and candy for his family before the fatal crash, she said.
"He just went to the store to buy some sodas and Snickers," she told the Daily News. "Something fell from his hand and he went to pick it up and he went flying."
Police were looking for the driver, who headed west on Avenue V, late Friday.
Strickland said she gave Perez chest CPR while he lay bleeding on the ground, waiting for an ambulance.
"He had no pulse,” she said. “I gave him chest compressions, maybe 30 chest compressions, and he started having a pulse again, that’s when the ambulance took him.”
Neighbors lit candles outside Perez's home early Saturday. His girlfriend hung a handwritten goodbye note on the base of a lamppost.
"I love you. You left behind your kindness, your love and your laughter, but overall our son, Francis Jr," the note read. "We will always love you."
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