Couple in car nearly crushed
THEY THOUGHT they were going to die.
A Long Island couple was thankful to be alive after their SUV was crushed with them inside Sunday by falling debris caused by a Midtown crane calamity.
Priscilla and Gregory Welch had just dropped off their daughter at work at Lord & Taylor on Fifth Ave. at 38th St. at 10:43 a.m. when they drove into a downpour of glass, metal and chunks of concrete.
“I was just waiting to be crushed to death,” a shaken Priscilla Welch, 49, told the Daily News.
The Elmont woman was at the wheel of the Mazda CX7 and knew she and her husband were in trouble as soon as she turned onto Madison Ave. from 38th St. and saw a construction worker mouthing, “Watch out!”
“Before I knew it, everything started crashing. The car started shaking,” said Priscilla Welch. “I told my husband, just get down, and we got as low as we could. It felt like it was coming at us at over 100 mph. It was coming from all directions, I couldn’t tell if it was from right from left.”
Priscilla said a chunk of debris the size of a boulder hit the back of the Mazda, where their daughter had been sitting 30 seconds earlier. “I tried to continue to drive to get away from it as far as we could,” she said.
She plowed into a fire hydrant, causing her air bag to deploy in her face.
When her husband, 51, couldn’t get out from his side, he and Priscilla escaped through the driver’s side door.
They were both amazed they weren’t seriously injured.
“It’s like we had an invisible shield over us,” Priscilla said after being released from NYU Langone Medical Center. “Thank God that’s what was around us.”