Docs told her not to drive
PARK SLOPE HORROR DRIVER BUSTED Faces 10 charges in death of B’klyn kids Had been ordered to stay off road for year Medics at her house 3 days before crash
THE DOCTORS’ DIRE warnings came in rapid succession, three in a mere five weeks: Dorothy Bruns was a ticking time bomb behind the wheel of a car.
The sickly Staten Island woman ignored their counsel — and now faces manslaughter charges for running a red light and killing two Park Slope kids on an afternoon walk with their mothers.
Bruns, 44, was blamed in a 10-count indictment Thursday for the horrifying March 5 wreck that killed a 1-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl after the blackedout driver blew through a red light.
Bruns climbed into her Volvo S60 that day despite the knowledge that her failing health, including issues with seizures, made her a lethal road risk.
“And she continued to drive,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez at a press conference Thursday.
“She took the lives of two innocent babies, injured three pedestrians, their mothers. And it was tragic, but it was solely due to her selfish decision to drive.”
The accused killer even kept driving after a Jan. 20 hit-and-run fender-bender, said Gonzalez — adding that her third and final doctor’s warning came just 20 days before the seizure preceding the deadly Brooklyn wreck.
Bruns was instructed to surrender her car keys “not just for the short term, but for a minimum of one year,” said Gonzalez.
Witnesses said she was foaming at the mouth and twitching in the car’s front seat after the crash.
Bruns, who entered a plea of not guilty via defense attorney David Jacobs, wept in the rear of the courtroom after bail was set at $75,000.
She faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Bruns was also charged with criminally negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, assault and other counts.
The defendant told police that she remembers nothing of the fatal crash — not even the sight of Joshua Lew and Abigail Blumenstein in a Brooklyn crosswalk as her runaway car bore down on the kids and their moms.
Abigail’s mother Ruthie Ann Miles earned a Tony in 2015 for her performance in “The King and I.” She was seven months pregnant at the time of the crash, and the baby miraculously survived the carnage.
“This crash really punched Park Slope in the gut,” said City Councilman Brad Lander. (DBrooklyn). “A lot of families, people just felt ‘It could have been me and my kids.’
“It really affected the community in a deep way.”
Court documents obtained by
the Daily News indicated that police finally told the suspect that her car hit a pedestrian. Bruns couldn’t even recall the name of the street where the fatal wreck occurred.
Little Joshua’s stroller was dragged more than 350 feet before Bruns’ vehicle slammed into a parked car and stopped as witnesses stood shell-shocked at the busy Brooklyn intersection.
A distraught-looking Bruns arrived in the courthouse Thursday after her arrest, ignoring questions from a reporter as she rode in the elevator before her arraignment.
The defendant has a sketchy driving history, with a dozen traffic violations since 2016 — including speeding in a school zone and running multiple red lights.
The repeated incidents raised questions about whether Bruns, who also suffers from multiple sclerosis, belonged behind the wheel at all.
“There’s no reason she should have been driving,” said Mayor de Blasio during an unrelated Thursday event in Brooklyn. “And we need to reform our state laws to stop that from happening again.
“So it’s not going to bring those kids back, but at least it shows there’s going to be some accountability.”
Defense lawyer Jacobs insisted his client received a doctor’s OK to drive after Bruns underwent a medical test.
“The doctor said in a letter than she can resume regular activities,” said Jacobs. “This was a horrific tragedy that my client never thought in this world would ever happen.”
He added that Bruns has two fractured feet from an unrelated incident and he doesn’t know how she would manage in jail.
But Gonzalez refuted the claim, insisting that Bruns was cleared for work and not for driving. “I am confident that this investigation has shown that this was truly a decision that she made, to drive when she was not capable of handling what’s really a deadly weapon in a safe manner,” said the prosecutor.
Gonzalez added that Bruns was driving even before she received that letter.
Bruns told police she suffered a seizure before accelerating through the red light. Cops stripped her of her license the following day.
Just three crash, medics rushed to Bruns’ apartment after a 911 call that she was having heart problems.
Medics were dispatched to her home on a number of occasions, and she went on medical leave from her job in January after an incident where Bruns — afraid she had suffered a stroke — was forced to pull her car over.
Neighbors told The News that she looked so sickly they worried about her driving, describing Bruns as hunched over and slurring her words.
In September, she struck a pedestrian in Long Island City, Queens, but the crash wasn’t properly documented, The News reported in February. With Graham Rayman and Erin Durkin