Ill health & still on the road
Five years after the accident, Bruns and her husband were drowning in debt and filed for bankruptcy.
At the time, Bruns eked out a living as an aide at Staten Island University Hospital while her husband worked as a carpenter, records show. The couple had a 2-year-old daughter and a combined income of $2,661 a month. But their monthly expenses were nearly $3,000, and they had amassed $76,530 in debt. Within a year, they emerged from bankruptcy and managed to purchase a home in Rosebank, S.I., for $145,000.
But a few years later, their financial footing slipped again. In 2007, on the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, their home was foreclosed on, records show. The couple managed to hold on to the home and sold it in 2015 for $310,000.
By then, the Brunses’ marriage had crumbled. They divorced in 2012. Two years later, Bruns sued the city on behalf of her teenage daughter.
The lawsuit said the daughter injured herself when she tripped on a broken curb on Tompkins Ave. on Staten Island. It is unclear if that case was settled or dismissed.
Bruns became a licensed real estate broker, working for various Staten Island firms, including Vintage Property NYC Corp. She held her license until January 2017 and never received any complaints, according to state records.
Estee Weisz, one of her clients, recalled bumping into her at different nail salons in Staten Island. She said Bruns looked perfectly healthy.
“In the past three years, I’ve ran into this lady three times,” Weisz said. “She doesn’t look sick like everyone’s talking about.”
But Bruns’ health affected her most recent job at ClearCaptions, forcing her to take at least a month off in January. As part of her job, she would showcase the company’s telephones at senior centers and drive to the homes of clients in the New York City area to assist them.
She was working at the time of the crash, the co-worker said.
A spokeswoman for ClearCaptions did not respond to a request for comment.
The co-worker recalled how Bruns once helped an elderly client who was getting scammed online by contacting the woman’s bank.
“She is a good woman,” the coworker said. “She always went out of her way to help people.”