Woman, 26, killed by tour bus in Streeterville

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Zachary Pernikliyski was walking to work downtown Tuesday evening when he saw a tour bus bump over what he thought was a suitcase.

Moments later, he came to a terrible realization.

“I started shouting ‘That’s a person! That’s a person! Why did you do that?’ ” a still shaken Pernikliyski said Wednesday, as authorities identified the dead woman as Justyna Palka and police said that the coach driver would be charged.

Palka — a 26-year-old art director who was born in Poland and emigrated from Germany in 2005 — was crossing Columbus at East Illinois when she was struck at 6:52 p.m., authorities said. She was declared dead at Northwestern Memorial hospital less than 15 minutes later. The light was green for her to cross but the coach driver did not yield as he turned into Columbus, Pernikliyski said.

“I don’t think he saw her,” Pernikliyski said, “He looked shocked and he was crying when they put him in the back of the police car.”

The driver told investigators he heard a bump, which he thought was a curb, but then stopped the bus, got out and discovered Palka after he heard a second bump, a source said. He was also treated at Northwestern for unspecified injuries.

Palka, who lived next door to her mother and step-dad on the 400 block of North McClurg in Streeterville, came to Chicago from Dortmund, Germany, and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. She worked as an art director at the communications firm Ogilvy & Mather, designing print advertisements, according to her resume. She had also worked as an intern at Chicago magazine.

“She was very creative, with a great eye for the arts, and just the nicest person you could ever meet,” her cousin, Bob Bruno said. At an Easter family gathering just a couple of weeks ago, Palka had spoken about her love of her work and how she was missing her brothers and newly-born niece, who remained in Germany. “She couldn’t wait to go and see them again,” Bruno said.

Close friend Anetka Moskal, 18, said Palka had been “like the older sister we never had” to her and her sister. “We looked up to her and she would do our hair, our make up and our nails,” she said. “We sat up crying all night when we found out what happened. It’s tragic.”

Family members are travelling to Chicago and will likely hold a service here before burying Palka in Germany, relatives said.

Contributing: Sun-Times Media Wire