Chinatown senior killed by truck on Canal St. leaves behind wife of more than 50 years

A 77-year-old man killed when he was struck by a flatbed truck on Canal St. in Chinatown leaves behind his wife of more than 50 years, heartbroken relatives said Saturday.

Three days after Thursday’s stunning crash, Ting Jun Ye’s children are trying to cope with his loss, care for their grieving mother, and keep a hospital vigil for Ye’s daughter Yong Wong, who was also struck by the flatbed truck and suffered a severe spinal injury.

The truck driver, Milton Williams, was coming off the Manhattan Bridge at Canal St. when his truck, which was overloaded with wooden pallets, jumped the curb and hit Ye and Wong at about 10 a.m.

The force of the impact sent father and daughter flying down the sidewalk, where they struck a 71-year-old woman as Williams veered back into the street and onto Bowery, where he struck a van and a box truck.

“It’s very difficult. There’s nothing we can do,” Ye’s daughter Yong Li Hu, 50, told the Daily News. “I can do nothing to change this. All we can do is take care of our mother.”

“It’s very hard for (her),” she said about her mom. “They were married for over 50 years.”

Ye, a retired cleaner at a bank, was on his way to a doctor’s appointment when the flatbed truck struck him. Wong was taking him to the doctor, Hu said.

The two were hit as they waited to cross Canal St., Wong’s husband told the Daily News Thursday.

“The truck came from the Manhattan Bridge very fast. My wife is very careful, but she didn’t see the truck coming,” Kin Fai Wong, 77, said.

Police said Williams’ truck accelerated as it exited the Manhattan Bridge into Chinatown, but it wasn’t immediately clear why.

Video obtained by The News shows a stack of wood pallets hanging off Williams’ truck striking Ye and his daughter as it speeds past. The impact sends the pair flying down the sidewalk, where they slam into the other woman, who falls to the pavement with them, the footage shows.

After striking the pedestrians, Williams continued onto the Bowery, sideswiping a van a block away near Hester St., cops said. A separate video shows the truck strike the van and then glance off a box truck before rolling to a stop.

Medics rushed the three pedestrians to Bellevue Hospital, where Ye died. The elderly woman who suffered minor leg injuries was listed in stable condition Friday.

The 47-year-old man behind the wheel of the van that was struck by the flatbed truck was taken to the same hospital in stable condition.

“I’m so sad, man. How can you kill someone?” Wong’s husband asked. “My father-in-law is dead, and we’re only lucky to have my wife still alive.”

Wong’s spine was fractured in several places when she was hit. She remained in Bellevue Hospital on Saturday, her sister said.

“Her injuries are internal,” her husband said. “(The truck) did a lot of damage.”

“She’s a little better than yesterday,” Hu said. “We’re still waiting for the doctors to find out how bad her injuries are.”

“I think she will be able to walk again,” she said.

Williams remained at the scene and passed a breathalyzer test, cops said. He claimed the brakes on his 2001 Chevrolet 3500 flatbed failed as he came off the bridge and mounted the curb.

Cops investigated his claim and learned that his brake lines were leaking and the truck had very little brake fluid left.

Williams, who owns the truck, wasn’t criminally charged, but investigators gave him several criminal court summonses for low brake fluid, brake fluid leaking from his brake lines, and inoperable left and right brake lights, cops said.

As the truck’s owner, he’s responsible for truck repairs and the vehicle’s upkeep.

Ye’s family was stunned to learn that Williams wasn’t criminally charged.

“We’re going to have a lawyer fight this,” Hu said.

Cops had issued summonses to Williams twice before, once in 2024 for failing to yield to a pedestrian and in 2018 for disobeying a traffic device, officials said.

Transportation advocates have called for the reconstruction of Canal St. near the Manhattan Bridge for years. The fatal crash ramps up the pedestrian death toll on that part of Canal St. — dubbed by advocates as a “Boulevard of Death” — to 10 since 2014, officials said.

Vehicles crossing the Manhattan Bridge empty out into a very busy Chinatown intersection. Last year, a speeding driver of a stolen Chevrolet Malibu slammed into a bicyclist and a woman sitting on a bench near the entrance to the Manhattan Bridge, killing both of them, officials said.

“There’s been plenty of deaths on this corner. People speed coming off the bridge. This corner is very bad. It’s so congested with traffic,” Juan, a 55-year-old security guard on Bowery, said. “They really need to crack down on this corner. If they were to put flashing lights there, yellow, warning you to slow down, that would grab your attention.”

“I’ve seen them put yellow lights on the dumbest turns and then somewhere like this where they actually need it, they don’t put them up,” he said.

The city’s Department of Transportation will begin a major reconstruction project on Canal St. later this year, an agency spokesman said.

The city has already taken several steps to slow vehicles down as they come off the bridge, including lowering the speed limit and narrowing the lanes, officials said.