Retired nurse killed in hit-run on Upper West Side

A woman who grew up on a cattle ranch in Nebraska and made the city her home for more than four decades, working as a nurse at the highly regarded Payne Whitney Clinic, was killed in a hit-and-run accident Friday near her home on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

A Bronx woman was arrested in the accident that killed Margaret Fisher, 68, three blocks from her home on West 96th Street, police said Saturday. Police charged Jessica Altruz, 24, from the Soundview neighborhood, with leaving the scene of an accident.

Just after 3 p.m. on Friday, police said Altruz was driving on West 93rd Street when her white 2006 Dodge Charger struck Fisher, who was crossing the street in the crosswalk at Columbus Avenue. The impact knocked Fisher to the ground and she suffered severe head injuries, police said.

Altruz fled the scene but was stopped by a Good Samaritan and apprehended a block west at Amsterdam Avenue, police said.

Paramedics took Fisher to St. Luke's Division of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

"We're a family that has never had a tragedy like this before," her brother Lowell Fisher, 70, said by phone from the Spencer, Neb., ranch where she grew up as the only girl among four brothers. "It's just hard for me to comprehend."

After being trained as a nurse in Omaha and working in Seattle, she came East while in her mid-20s.

"She moved to New York in 1967 and loved it and has been there ever since," her brother said. "She loved it, so she stayed. She loved the people. She loved the city life."

Lowell Fisher said his sister, who was retired, had been head nurse at the Payne Whitney Clinic of New York-Presbyterian Hospital's Weill Cornell Medical Center, one of the nation's top psychiatric facilities.

"She was extremely capable and extremely independent and extremely tough - and tough in a good way," he said.

A spokeswoman for New York-Presbyterian Hospital said she could not immediately confirm Margaret Fisher's employment history.

Neighbors in the West 96th Street building where Fisher lived said she was an active person who had survived breast cancer and liked to go swimming and on power walks.

"She was a lovely neighbor," said Kate Chamberlain, 52, who has lived across the hall from her for 12 years. "If you needed help, she would be there to help you."

After learning of the tragedy, people gathered in the building lobby and talked about the loss of their neighbor, Chamberlain said.

"A lot of people in the building knew her," she said. "The building is in shock."

Neighbor Margaret McGovern said she thought Fisher, like herself, had lived in the building for more than 30 years. Fisher was very active in her church and volunteered for Habitat for Humanity to build housing for the poor, McGovern said.

She also gave her time one day a week at a shelter for homeless women.

"It was one the things she did that was really admirable in this day and age when people don't do things like that," McGovern said. "She was an admirable person, and it's a great loss."

With Laura Mann