PAWTUCKET — A man who wasn’t allowed on a Providence-bound RIPTA bus because he appeared to be drunk was fatally injured when he fell under the bus’s rear wheel.

Domenick R. Paola, 57, died about an hour after being taken by ambulance to Memorial Hospital, Sgt. Roy Clary of the Pawtucket Police Department’s traffic division said.

Clary said the preliminary results of an investigation by detectives and the traffic division showed Paola fell backward and was run over by the bus after the driver, Raymond Belanger, 54, of Cranston, refused to let him board.

The accident occurred around 4:15 p.m. Friday on East Avenue near Harvey Street. The police withheld details while they tried without success to contact Paola’s next-of-kin.

Detective William P. Magill said an autopsy being conducted by the medical examiner’s office should determine whether Paola was intoxicated.

A spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office said the autopsy results weren’t available yesterday afternoon.

In a witness statement, Belanger, 54, of Cranston, told detectives that he believed Paola to be drunk because he was stumbling and could barely get up the steps, Magill said.

A companion, 59-year-old Daniel Serrano of Providence, who was allowed onto the bus, told the police he and Paola had been drinking before they tried to board.

Magill said Belanger couldn’t see Paola out of the rearview mirror of the bus when he pulled away from the bus stop. The bus driver took the accident “pretty hard,” Magill said, even though when he was interviewed he was unaware that Paola had died.

Clary said Belanger isn’t being charged in the accident. Karen Mensel, director of marketing and communications for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority, said RIPTA policy allows drivers to refuse service to passengers who appear to be drunk.

“It’s a policy, yes,” Mensel said, in response to a reporter’s question yesterday. For the driver’s safety and the safety of passengers, RIPTA bus drivers are allowed to refuse service to passengers they perceive to be intoxicated, she said.

Paola, whose last known address was 120 Phenix Ave., Cranston, was apparently homeless.

Anne Nolan, president of Crossroads Rhode Island, a private nonprofit social service agency in Providence, said Paola had been staying at Crossroads since last month.

Tracey Z. Poole, a spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections, said Paola has been held at the Adult Correctional Institutions on seven occasions since 1998, always on charges such as writing bad checks, driving while his license was suspended and failing to appear in court.

His most recent stay at the ACI began Sept. 21, when he was arrested on charges of felony domestic assault and disorderly conduct, Poole said.

It ended Nov. 27, Poole said, when Paola received probation on the disorderly conduct charge and posted bail on the charge of felony domestic assault.

jcastell@projo.com