car crash in New York kills 5, including 2 children
maxidasds708 An SUV crashed into a concrete pillar and overturned before bursting into flames early Sunday, killing three women and two children and reducing the vehicle to a mangled mess.
The driver, another adult and a child inside the vehicle were hospitalized.
The 2008 Mercedes Benz SUV was traveling east on Atlantic Avenue in the borough of Queens in New York around 3:15 when it hit a pillar supporting the AirTrain to the airport John F. Kennedy International, authorities said.
The vehicle was speeding and blew through two red lights, police and witnesses told the Daily News.
A motorist traveling north on the service road of the Van Wyck Expressway told the newspaper that he had a green light and crossed the intersection of Atlantic Avenue when the SUV 2008 near hit.
"All I saw was headlights," Ryan Jardine, 24, told the News. "She ran the light, we almost hit and then hit the post."
digimaster 3 He said the driver swerved to avoid another vehicle.
"We saw the car just hit the post and went into a somersault," he said. "He just started turning. It was horrible."
Three adult passengers, all women, were declared dead at the scene, as well as an 8-year-old girl and a 9 year old boy.
Chief Stephen Browne of the fire department in New York called the worst single car accident he had seen in his 26-year career.
"To see the devastation of human life much in an accident involving a single vehicle on a side street is not normal," said New.
Firefighters extricated victims with jaws of life tools while firing. The 8-year-old girl was ejected from the vehicle and found dead on the ground about 10 feet from the SUV.
One of the three dead women still wearing his seat in the front passenger seat, while another was thrown from the SUV and pinned under him, officials said the News.
V-checker V301 The driver, a woman aged 45, was the subject of surgery at Jamaica Hospital, said Joann Ariola of the public affairs department of the hospital. She said a 7 year old boy was in stable condition in the pediatric emergency department, and a man was in stable condition and can be treated and soon released. Police said the man was 26 years old.