DREAMS DASHED
Local victims chasing success Argentines’ joy turns to tragedy
THEY WERE beloved only children chasing their dream jobs in Manhattan.
Darren Drake, 32, of New Milford, N.J., and Nicholas Cleves, 23, of Manhattan, were among those killed on the bike path along the Hudson River Tuesday when a truck-driving terrorist jumped a sidewalk and ran down cyclists and pedestrians in his path.
Of the eight people killed by 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, Drake and Cleves were the only Americans.
“He was just a wonderful person,” Drake’s heartbroken mother, Barbara, 69, told the Daily News after returning from the coroner’s office.
“He had such a wonderful life ahead of him,” she added. “He never saw this coming.”
Drake, who worked as a project manager at Moody’s, was studying for his second master’s degree and loved traveling, she said.
Before his death, he was listening to an audio book, “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus,” according to his mother.
Drake lived with his parents, and graduated from Rutgers University with a political science degree and had a master’s degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He was studying for another master’s degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, his mother said.
She last spoke with him Tuesday morning.
“He just left for work like a nor- mal day,” she said.
Cleves worked from his West Village apartment as a software engineer for Unified Digital Group, according to his LinkedIn page.
“He was the kind of person every parent wants their kid to grow up to be,” said friend Diane Cohen. “Nicholas was smart, funny, kind and just an absolutely decent human being — unlike the person who killed him.”
Cleves loved riding his bike everywhere and had an uncanny ability to wolf down a slice of pizza, said Cohen, a baker in the area, who was preparing platters of food to bring to the grieving family.
“He was just a fun-loving person who found joy in everything,” she said.
Phil Kassen, director of the Little Red Schoolhouse and Elisabeth Irwin High School, both attended by Cleves, said his gentle nature always stood out.
“Nicholas was the kindest, most decent, and honest human being. Everybody takes on a halo in death. We thought this about Nicholas when he was alive,” Kassen said. Belgian mother Ann-Laure Decadt, 31, was also killed in the attack. She leaves behind two sons, a 3-year-old and the other just 3 months old.
“This loss is unbearable and unthinkable,” her husband Alexander Naessens said in a statement. “Ann-Laure was a fantastic wife and the most beautiful mom to our two sons.”
Her mother and two sisters, who had been biking with her, were not harmed.
Naessens said he was in Belgium when he received the news of his wife’s death in a phone call from New York-Presbyterian HospitalLower Manhattan on Tuesday night.
Decadt was planning on leaving the U.S. Friday after arriving with her mother and two sisters in New York last weekend, family spokesman Francesco Vanderjeugd, the mayor of Staden, Belgium, told The News.
“This is a shock in our city.” Vanderjeugd said. “It is a small community of only about 11,000 people.”
Decadt’s social media pages show a love of adventure, with pictures of her bungee-jumping in South Africa and long-distance biking in Benin.
Five Argentine men celebrating 30 years of of friendship were also killed as the terrorist sped a truck rented at Home Depot into a bike path. Authorities identified them as Hernán Mendoza, Diego Angelini, Alejandro Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij and Hernán Ferruchi.
Another 13 people were injured in the attack. The injured include Martin Marro, 48, an Argentine na- tive living in Massachusetts, who ho suffered neck injuries, police said.
Cecilia Piedrabuena, the wife of survivor Ariel Benvenuto, said her er husband was biking with his is friends when the horror occurred. .
“There were 10 in two rows of five, he was last on the left side,” ,” Piedrabuena told Ambito, a news ws outlet in Argentina. “He felt a car ar coming at a very high speed …. (it) t) ran over those on the right,” Piedraabuena said.
“Ariel was left unharmed beecause he was last in line, but he saw w everything,” she added.
Meanwhile, one child who was as in the school bus hit by Saipov in front of Stuyvesant High School reemained in critical condition late te Wednesday. Another student, the he school bus driver and and an attenndant all suffered minor injuries.