A son’s agony
Mom dies in hit-run — cops MIA, he says
The son of a Queens woman who died two weeks after being struck by a hit-and-run driver has been forced to hunt down the suspect without much help from police, the devastated family said Tuesday.
Luka Krstic, a 34-year-old doctor, doggedly canvassed local shops in Ridgewood for security video before finding footage that showed a white car slamming into his mom, Draga Krstic, at 60th St. and Myrtle Ave. on July 1. The car didn’t even slow down as it blew through a red light and fled the scene, according to the video. The driver remains at large.
His mom, who had been on her way to buy bread and ice cream at the Monreale Bakery on Myrtle Ave., suffered 10 broken bones, with injuries to her torso, pelvis, right leg and several ribs. Medics rushed her to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center and then to the Level 1 trauma center at Kings County Hospital.
She was lucid and her health appeared to be improving to the point where she was transferred to the Promenade Rehabilitation Center in Far Rockaway.
But Draga Krstic, 63, died suddenly Monday — a devastating blow for her family.
“There was a strong sense that she was getting better,” Luka Krstic said, adding he would have justice “when the person responsible for the incident gets caught and when they pay for their crime.”
An autopsy was conducted Tuesday. Doctors believe it may have been a blood clot that stopped her heart. She had stopped receiving an anti-coagulant at the rehab center that had been given to her at Kings County Hospital.
“She seemed to have been ignored. The medication that she got at Kings County, all of it was not prescribed at the rehab center,” Luka said.
The rehab center had no comment on his mother’s care.
The day after the crash, her son and her husband, Radislav Krstic, visited the 104th Precinct stationhouse and were given a number for the detectives. They called a few times, but didn’t hear back from investigators for almost a week, they said.
Rather than waiting for the cops, Luka Krstic visited 10 businesses along Myrtle Ave. and obtained surveillance footage of the crash. One video showed his mother in the distance as the car struck her, and a second showed the front end of the car with collision damage.
“He’s done all the investigation himself at this point,” said Luka’s lawyer Daniel Szalkiewicz.
Luka said he was troubled that the case didn’t seem to be a high priority for police. They only obtained the video footage on Tuesday, he said.
“If my last name was famous, they would prioritize it. But I’m not famous,” he said.
An NYPD spokesman said detectives have been in regular contact with the Krstics and the NYPD’s collision investigation squad opened a probe Tuesday.
“Our heart goes out to Luka and his family. We are hoping the community will come together to give him the justice they deserve,” Szalkiewicz said.
Luka and his girlfriend, Natalie Chan, 37, were with Draga at the rehab center just two hours before she died. She had asked for a diary because she had been recording her thoughts in the margins of a magazine. In one entry, she had noted, “pain-free.”
“His mother was actually doing so well yesterday when we visited her, and she asked me to buy her a diary,” Chan said, breaking into tears.
Born in the former Yugoslavia, Draga Krstic was a doctor there before the family immigrated to the U.S. and bought their Ridgewood home in 2000. She worked as a housekeeper and her husband as a window washer.
“It was a struggle at first,” Luka said. “They went from job to job, but they made a good living . . . . She was loved by her neighbors. She loved gardening. She was a great cook. She was the life of the party.”