CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Friends and relatives are mourning an 82-year-old Somerville woman who was struck and killed by a loose firetruck hose this week in a freak accident in Cambridge.

Gertrude King, 82, was killed Tuesday when a firetruck driving down Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge made a left turn onto Western Avenue and a loose fire hose went flying in her direction as she stood in a median on Western Avenue.

Police said the hose dragging behind the engine during the emergency call extended the length of a city block.

"We do know the hose is 200 feet long and we believe that the hose was completely off the truck and being dragged at the time it struck," Cambridge Police Deputy Superintendent Jack Albert said.

King, "Aunty Trudy" to her relatives, had no time to get out of the way. Investigators believe the hose hit her behind the knees and tore her leg apart.

"She was very special," said Elanor Raniri. She and Doris Pratt live in the same Somerville apartment complex in which King lived. They learned Thursday morning of their friend's death.

"It's unbelievable. It's hard to take in," Raniri said.

"It was just such a shock. No matter where she went, she loved to walk. Different people would meet her and say, 'Would you like a ride?' And she'd say, 'I'd rather walk,'" Pratt said.

They said King had a daily routine of walking down to Cambridge's Central Square to shop.

Doctors operated on King's leg. It would have been amputated if she had survived, according to her friends. She died almost two days after the accident and police said they have not yet determined how the hose dislodged.

"Everybody liked her," Pratt said.

King's friends described her as a "very independent lady," and her nephew said she was strong to the end. He said she still had her Whole Foods bags in her hands when brought to the hospital, he said, and was telling nurses which foods could be saved and which needed to be thrown out.