A sanitation worker was hit and killed Monday morning by his own garbage truck in Melville.
Suffolk police say it happened as the garbage truck was slowly backing up on Weinmann Boulevard near Raintree Road at around 6 a.m.
They say sanitation worker 44-year-old Jose Molina, of Brentwood, was riding on the back when he somehow fell and was run over by the truck.
Police pronounced Molina dead at the scene.
A witness says the truck driver appeared extremely upset. "The man who hit him was sitting on the curb crying his eyes out, because he totally at all did not mean to hit him," says Kat Campirides, of Melville.
The garbage truck is owned by Jody Enterprises of Bellmore and is under contract by the Town of Huntington.
According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the company has no major violations. Suffolk police inspected the truck, and later released the truck to its owners.
Police did not charge the driver of the garbage truck, 38-year-old Jose Arroyo, but add that the investigation is ongoing.