Burning smell fails to tip off driver who drags man 20 miles underneath van

BY Mike Jaccarino And Jonathan Lemire DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Updated Wednesday, February 11th 2009, 8:56 PM

A pedestrian hit by an SUV on a Queens street got stuck under a passing van that dragged him for an incredible 20 miles to Brooklyn, police said.
The gruesome journey began Wednesday on 108th St. in Corona - and did not end until the van driver finally noticed the man's mangled corpse in Brighton Beach nearly an hour later, police said.
"You can't imagine the shock I felt when I climbed out of the van and saw the body," said the van's driver, Manuel Gaspar Latune Sanchez.
"I was in shock," said Sanchez, a freelance deliveryman. "My nerves. ... I couldn't look anymore."
Sanchez had even stopped twice along the way, thinking he smelled something burning.
He did not make the terrible discovery until a passerby flagged him down on Brighton 10th Terrace - nearly 20 miles from the accident scene.
The man had been impaled on a metal skid plate on the underside of the van, and the back of his body had worn off during the long ride, police said.
It is not known if the man was alive when he was swept under the van, although he is believed to have been dead for most of the trip.
Investigators said the victim - whose body was too destroyed to identify immediately - was not in the crosswalk when he tried to cross 108th St. near 51st Ave. just after 6:10a.m.
The driver of an approaching Ford Expedition attempted to swerve, but the SUV slammed into the pedestrian, knocking him to the ground and then running over him with a rear wheel, police said.
Driver Gustavo Acosta pulled over and called 911.
When cops arrived moments later, they could not find the victim, who was already stuck under Sanchez's van.
Sanchez, who had been two cars behind the SUV, later told detectives he thought drivers were swerving to avoid a pothole.
The van's metal skid plate tore into the pedestrian, who was lying faceup in the street, and lodged in his sternum, hooking the victim to the van's chassis, police said.
A security video confirmed Sanchez pulled over a few minutes later and walked around the van.
Because the dead man - who cops said was about 5-feet-4 - could not easily be spotted from the road, Sanchez drove off again.
"I didn't feel it, and I didn't hear anything," said Sanchez, who had been listening to the radio. "I didn't know what happened."
Still oblivious, Sanchez got on the Long Island Expressway a few blocks away and then drove south on the Van Wyck Expressway and west on the Belt Parkway before exiting in Brighton Beach.
He stopped again at Brighton Sixth St., but again found nothing.
"I'm just so nervous and very sad," Sanchez said. "I'm very sorry for the family of the man."
Both men involved in the accident have clean driving records, and neither was charged, detectives said.
The dead man was not carrying identification, but cops found a broken iPhone a business card and a Western Union receipt in his pockets, sources said. A blue jacket was found along the route.
jlemire@nydailynews.com