‘Like an explosion’
Lab tech killed on way to work at Qns.hosp
A lab technician driving to his Queens hospital job was killed early Friday in a grisly T-bone crash with a driver who may have been impaired, police and witnesses said.
Daniel Crawford, of Bloomfield, N.J., was pronounced dead at Queens Hospital Center — the hospital where he worked as a phlebotomist drawing and testing blood samples.
Crawford, 52, was driving south along Parsons Blvd. in Kew Gardens around 4:05 a.m. when a 22-year-old Mercedes driver going east on Union Turnpike T-boned him at the intersection.
Security guard Phillip Famar was about to start his shift at a Rite Aid when he saw the bent, shattered wreckage of the crash. A total of four cars were damaged, witnesses said.
“Physically, I haven’t seen anything like that in person,” Famar, 39, said. “I’ve only seen [crashes] like that on movies or television ... Those cars were so badly damaged. It was terrible.”
An FDNY electrician sent to repair a fire alarm box damaged in the collision added: “It looked like an explosion. This was pretty bad.”
Dark fluid pooled near the scene littered with broken auto glass.
“That’s either transmission fluid or blood over there,” the FDNY technician said, only giving his first name as Ray. “I don’t want to find out.”
Crawford was a proud dad of two sons — and just welcomed a new baby grandson last week
— who wished one son good luck on his first day of work in August. “May God Bless My Son And Keep His Head Right!!” he wrote on Facebook.
“He wanted to go back for a nursing degree. He is humble and he would send positive Facebook messages every day at 5:30 a.m. on his way to work and that just uplifted people,” Crawford’s exwife, Lynette Harris, told the Daily News.
“Danny was a man who loved God and would do anything to help others, he loved working in the medical field as he was a lab technician and was a frontline health worker during COVID,” she added, noting that “even though him and I are divorced, we are very close. He truly will be missed.”
On Aug. 25, Crawford posted a photo of himself in hospital gear with the tag, “Frontliners.” Coworkers said he assisted with
COVID-19 cases.
“The entire NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens community is saddened by the sudden loss of Daniel Crawford, a well-respected colleague who worked at the hospital for over 2½ years,” the hospital said in a statement Friday. “He will be deeply missed by all those who knew him and worked with him.”
Most mornings, Crawford bought lottery tickets at the nearby Queens Pharmacy Center, a clerk there said. He also bought coffee a couple of times a week from a nearby halal food cart.
“I saw him coming and going,” said food cart vendor Zakaria Boudajar, who learned of Crawford’s death from a doctor. “I know all the doctors and nurses. I seen him often.”
Cops detained the 22-year-old man for possible drunken driving. No charges were immediately filed.