Woman dies of injuries from hit-run
A heartbroken Manhattan man Friday railed at the hit-and-run death of his mother by an elderly cabbie, lamenting that she was mowed down just a block from where she used to live in Chelsea at a “dangerous,” traffic-clogged corner.
Roberto Crespo, 50, said his 77-year-old mom, Iris Crespo, who was fatally struck on Eighth Ave. at W. 22nd St. on Thursday afternoon, “didn’t have to die like that.”
“I knew where it happened, and I sat down right across the street and I observed that area,” he told the Daily News. “That corner is dangerous.”
“My mother had no chance with her cane,” he said.
“You get Uber, you get Lyft, you get yellow cabs, green, you got bikes, come on,” he said. “Somebody almost got killed today when I was over there sitting down.”
“I don’t want this to keep happening to people.”
Roberto Crespo said his mother, a home health attendant, lived for 25 years in Chelsea at 207 W. Eighth Ave. until her retirement two years ago, when she moved in with him at the Amsterdam Houses on the Upper West Side. But he said his religious mom often returned to the old neighborhood to attend St. Columba Church, see friends and for medical appointments.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “I said goodbye, this and that, not thinking that was going to be the last time I see my mother.”
The cabbie, Daniel Fusar, 82, was hit with leaving the scene of an accident and other charges, telling The News on Thursday that he didn’t see Crespo and didn’t realize that he’d hit her.
“How can that man say he didn’t see my mother?” Roberto Crespo asked. “That car — I couldn’t sleep last night. I tried to sleep in her room. He messed up …. an 82-year-old man. They might as well just give everybody a taxi.”
“To me, he can rot in hell,” he said. “He’s going to get what he deserves for what he did to my mother.”
“My mom was the only thing I had, you know?” he said. “She showed me a lot of things … Now I’ve got to keep going on, and I’ve got to be strong and do what she say.”
Fusaro was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to yield to a pedestrian, failure to obey a traffic signal and failure to exercise due care. A 66-year-old woman who was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver in Brooklyn earlier this week died of her injuries, officials said Friday.
Ruilian Huang was crossing near the crosswalk at Belmont and Rockaway Aves. in Brownsville about 8:45 a.m. Monday when a red Honda CRV turning right onto Belmont Ave. slammed into her, cops said.
Huang (inset) was thrown onto the hood of the car, then fell to the side, and was run over by the driver’s-side tires. The driver sped off down Belmont Ave. without stopping, officials said.
Medics rushed Huang, of Cypress Hills, to Brookdale University Hospital. She succumbed to her injuries Thursday, officials said.
No arrests have been made. Huang, a home attendant, was heading to work early when she was struck and left for dead, her son said after a memorial service held at the Brooklyn senior residence where she lived with her husband.
Xiaohui Lin, 37, told the Daily News his mother also worked long hours caring for her aging and disabled husband. Huang was a schoolteacher in China before immigrating to the United States in 2011.
“She supported him. I supported them whenever I can,” Lin said. “She wanted to retire, but she knew she could not. She would tell me, ‘I am very tired.’ ”
Police told Lin his mother was lying on the Brooklyn street for over a half hour before she was discovered and a 911 call was made.
“Because the driver ran away, there was no one to call the ambulance,” said Lin. “The driver should spend time in jail, in prison, thinking of what he did.”
Huang was planning to travel to China in December to visit family she had not seen since moving to New York.
“His behavior has hurt many lives. It’s sad because he hurt not only one life, hers, but everyone. He destroyed the whole family, the whole community.”
Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at 1 (800) 577-TIPS.