So. Philly woman hit by SEPTA bus dies

Double shot of bad news today involving SEPTA buses and pedestrians.

At 74, Angelina Conti was as spry as ever, hurrying around her South Philly neighborhood every day to buy lotto tickets and chat with friends over coffee.
On Monday, she left her home on Porter Street near 16th to take a late afternoon busride to Center City to run a few errands.
The grandmother of six never made it to her destination. Police said she was struck by a SEPTA bus at Broad Street and Oregon Avenue and rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital with severe head trauma.
Conti died of her injuries at about 4 p.m. today — just three hours after police said a SEPTA bus struck and seriously injured a man in a wheelchair on 8th Street near Girard Avenue.
While both incidents are still under investigation, SEPTA officials noted one similarity: both victims had the right of way when they were hit.
"It's just so sad," said Denise Mezicco, Conti's daughter. "My mother was a kind person who was still active and full of life."
Mezicco recently convinced her mother, a lifelong South Philly resident, to move into a new house with her outside the area.
"We wanted to get a big place together so I could help take care of my dad, who is 86 and not very well," Mezicco said.
"He can't handle this. He was crying earlier, saying he wanted to call his sister to tell her his wife of 50 years has died."
SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said Conti, whose son Robert Conti is an Inquirer delivery driver, was walking across Broad Street when she was hit by the bus as it turned north onto Broad. "She was well within the crosswalk. We just don't know what occurred," Maloney said.
In the other incident, police said the Route 47 bus turned onto 8th Street from Girard Avenue about 1 p.m. today, just as a man in his 40s rolled his wheelchair into the crosswalk.
The footrest of the chair caught under the bus' left front tire and dragged him five or 10 feet down the block. Police said he was treated for a fractured foot at Hahnemann University Hospital. SEPTA officials said neither the driver nor the victim saw each other because of trucks parked near the corner.
Donald Jones, 47, watched in horror as the wheelchair-bound man was dragged screaming down the street. He looked away, but not before seeing the man's leg and wheelchair crushed under the weight of the bus. "It sounded terrible," he said of the man's screams. "I never witnessed anything like that before. There was a lot of blood."