Her beloved pooch was mowed down before her eyes by a heartless driver who didn’t even stop.
And when Kristin Rendina ran into a Brooklyn street Friday night to try to save her dying dog, the woman was struck by another driver. That driver didn’t stop, either.
The dog died, and Rendina was in critical condition Saturday at Lutheran Medical Center.
“The first car killed my daughter’s dog,” said Rendina’s distraught mother, Maryann DeRosa. “She ran out and she tended to him — and that’s when she gothit.”
Rendina, 31, was walking her miniature pinscher, Pasquolino, and her pit bull, Gino, when the smaller dog was run down by a vehicle heading south on W. Second St. near Avenue Z in Gravesend about 10:20 p.m., police and a witness said.
“She ran from the sidewalk to kneel by the dog, said Brian Linder, 61, a friend who was walking with Rendina. “Then the other car coming down Avenue Z came and hit her.”
Rendina was struck by a black Jeep Wrangler heading west on Avenue Z, Linder said.
Neither driver has been apprehended.
Linder said he placed his jacket beneath Rendina’s head to slow the bleeding until an ambulance arrived.
“She said she was having difficulty breathing, and I could see a pool of blood under her head,” he said.
“I can’t believe these guys — the way they drive around here.”
Rendina is in a battle for her life.
“They have her sedated for the weekend,” her mother said. “She has massive chest injuries and her lung collapsed. The doctor couldn’t tell me more than that.”
Rendina’s profile picture on Facebook shows her sleeping curled up with her pit bull — the dog that wasn’t hit Friday.
“She’s a real animal lover,” saidneighbor Santos Ortiz, 61, who has known Rendina since she was 2.
“It’s terrible. I usually go out to walk my dog after she gets back — and I was waiting at home and shenever came back. Police came to my door around 5 a.m. and toldme what happened — both hit-and-runs!”
There have been 97 pedestrians killed by motor vehicles through Oct. 1, according to NYPD statistics, compared with 118 for the same period last year, an 18% drop.
In June, Mayor de Blasio signed a sweeping package of 11 laws designed to crack down on reckless drivers and advance his ambitious Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic deaths in the city.
On Sept. 23, the City Council passed a law slapping hit-and-run drivers with fines up to $10,000 for leaving the scene of an accident.
