Cops: Man serious after hit by truck while hitching boat trailer

A Center Moriches man was seriously injured Thursday morning when he was run over by a pickup truck while trying to connect a boat trailer to it, police said.

Richard Belanger, 72, was trying to hitch the trailer to a 2001 Chevrolet Silverado in a backyard on Union Avenue in Center Moriches when he was hit at 9:55 a.m., Suffolk County police said.

Belanger was airlifted to Stony Brook University Hospital with serious injuries. The pickup driver, Anthony Pagan, 84, also of Center Moriches, was not injured, police said.

There was no criminality involved, and the incident is being investigated by Seventh squad detectives, police said.

The pickup was impounded for a safety check.