CRASH KILLS PASSENGER
Victim’s boyfriend charged with drunken driving in Queens
A woman was killed when her drunken boyfriend crashed into three vehicles early Thursday — and then drove off for 4 miles as she died in his passenger seat — according to police.
The 29-year-old victim was riding in a red Nissan when the 27-year-old driver slammed into a Honda Ridgeline SUV near 47th St. and 28th Ave. in Astoria at around 4:10 a.m., cops said.
The driver went on to drunkenly slam into two unoccupied parked cars before speeding off, according to cops. The 35-yearold man behind the wheel of the struck Honda was not hurt, police said.
The Nissan driver finally pulled over on 56th Drive near 61st St. in Maspeth, about 4 miles from where he crashed, and called 911.
Responding officers found the woman trapped unconscious in the front passenger seat. Firefighters needed to use crowbars and other tools to pull the open the door, which was crushed in the crash.
The woman died a short time later at Elmhurst Hospital Center. Her boyfriend was taken to the same hospital with minor injuries while in police custody on suspicion of drunken driving.
Criminal charges against the Nissan driver were pending Thursday.
Residents of the sleepy residential Astoria block woke up to find to their street covered in glass.
“I couldn’t understand what had happened,” said a 54-yearold woman who lives on the block. “I saw a car up on the sidewalk, [and] it was diagonal. The rear wheel was in the middle of the road.”
The incident was not out of the ordinary for the block, where drunken drivers often speed up and down the road, according to neighbors.
“I’ve seen a lot accidents on this road,” the woman said. “A lot of drunk drivers come by.”
Others, who woke up to either dinged up or totaled cars, are now dealing with insurance companies
“He’s upset,” said a man whose father’s car was hit. “This is going to upset him a lot. He’s older, you know?
“Things happen on this block all the time,” added the man, who only wanted to be identified as Giovanni. “It happens all day. People are always speeding here. A car got smashed on this corner not too long ago.”
There have been 15 crashes within a one-block radius of the intersection since 2019, according to crashmapper.org. The city-sponsored map and tool tracks crashes across the city.