DEATH-DEFYING
Flatliner revived after ‘DWI’ wreck
This crumpled heap of metal is all that was left of a car that slammed into a city truck during a drunken joyride Wednesday — a crash that caused one occupant to flatline before he was brought back to life, cops said.
The crash happened just after 2 a.m. at the intersection of Third Avenue and East 34th Street in Murray Hill, police said.
Stunned bystanders watched as first responders extracted the victims from the wreckage — which included a crushed Honda Civic, a yellow cab and a Department of Transportation big rig.
The Honda allegedly was burning rubber north on Third Avenue — blowing through several red lights — just prior to the accident.
“[The] Honda was going at least a hundred miles an hour,” said Donald Johnson, manager at Insomnia Cookies.
“When he got to the corner of 34th, the truck had the green light and just ran right into the Honda.”
As the car was flying through the intersection, it got T-boned by the tractor-trailer and became partially lodged underneath.
The impact caused one of the vehicles to strike the cab as the hack was idling in front of a building near the corner, cops said.
The two men in the Civic were rushed to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition.
The driver, identified by cops as Antonios Sikolas, 25, was later charged with vehicular assault, DWI and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
“[Sikolas] disobeyed a steady red light at a high rate of speed and was impaired by alcohol or unknown drugs,” police said.
At Bellevue, cops said they discovered that Sikolas “smelled strongly of alcohol” and determined that he was drunk.
“He had a suspended license and a warrant for failing to appeal for a previous suspension,” a police source told The Post.
Authorities said one Honda rider went into cardiac arrest at the scene, but doctors managed to revive him at the hospital.
The drivers of the DOT truck and the cab were both treated for minor injuries at Bellevue.