‘We’re all broken’
Dad struck by car in Qns. was family anchor
A man mowed down by a car while crossing one of Queens’ busiest roadways has died, police said Monday.
Jaipaul Persaud, 55, was trying to cross Queens Blvd. at 84th Drive in Briarwood when he was hit by 2013 Hyundai Elantra about 1:30 p.m. Friday.
Persaud was thrown onto the hood of the Elantra, smashed into the windshield, shattering it, and landed on the pavement.
“I heard a loud noise and people yelling,” Asad Mohamed, 33, who was shopping for fruit outside a nearby market, told the Daily News Friday. “When I turned a guy was lying on the ground with a lot of blood coming from his head.”
Medics rushed Persaud with severe head trauma to Jamaica Hospital; he died there Sunday.
The 33-year-old woman driving the Elantra was stopped at a red light moments before striking Persaud, who was in or very close to the crosswalk and had a walk signal. When the light turned green she made a left turn off 84th Drive onto Queens Blvd., hitting Persaud. She remained at the scene and faced no immediate charges.
Persaud had been visiting his mother, who lives three blocks away, when he was struck.
“That’s my eldest son,” Merlyne Persaud sobbed, touching a framed photo of him. She said Persaud had a doctor’s appointment and decided against taking his car.
“He comes here every day,” the 71-year-old mother said. His truck is still outside. He said, ‘Keep these keys and leave this mail, and I will come back.’ ”
A few hours later, as she wondered what had delayed her son, she got a call from his wife, and rushed with a neighbor to Jamaica Hospital.
“They had to do emergency surgery,” she said. “He had bad brain bleeding. The back of the skull was broken. I couldn’t even recognize his face. There was so much blood, blood in the nose, blood in his ears.”
Persaud was struck on a section of a roadway once known as the “boulevard of death” because of the high number of people killed in car crashes along the street. The nickname began to fade after the de Blasio administration started redesigning the boulevard with a new bike lane and safer pedestrian crossings.
City officials had to pause the final leg of the street’s redesign last year because of the pandemic.
Merlyne Persaud said her son was an independent contractor who had repair contracts with a local Burger King, a nearby Popeyes and other establishments.
“He could do anything,” the mother said. “Electrical, plumbing and heating. He was so creative.”
Persaud’s death was not her first heartache. Another one of her sons died in 2015 in Guyana. She said Persaud had looked after his brother’s children and was planning to start training his 18-year-old nephew soon.
Persaud grew up in Annandale, Guyana and moved to Suriname, where he met his wife, before arriving in New York in 2001.
“We’re going to miss him so bad,” said his wife, Nandranie Persaud, 56. She said she met her husband when she was 19.
“The second time he saw me he said to himself he was going to marry me,” she said.
“He was a happy guy,” she said. “He was so good to us, the neighbors, his family.”
His son Andrew, 32, called Persaud his best friend.
“He was a hardworking father,” Andrew said. “He was the strength in his home.”
“He’s always coming by and helping me and checking on me,” said daughter Heama Sewsankar, 29, who lives next door. “My kids love him. My 4-year-old daughter loves him. She always goes to his room. Now she’s going to wonder where he is.
“We’re all broken.”