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[UPDATE] Two Hit And Runs Leave One Dead, One Unconscious
By
Jaya Saxena
Published Feb 5, 2011
Modified Feb 7, 2011
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By
Jaya Saxena
Published Feb 5, 2011
Modified Feb 7, 2011
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[UPDATE BELOW] Yesterday, two hit and runs in the city left one disabled grandmother dead and one Brooklyn girl in the ICU with a punctured lung. Around 4 a.m., 58-year-old Ilia Lopez was struck by a livery cab on E. 121st St. at Second Avenue. The driver reportedly sped off with Lopez still on the hood of the car; she didn't fall off until he hit E. 120th Street and First avenue. She was pronounced dead at Harlem Hospital, but the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers wants to make sure nobody gets a bad view of livery drivers because of this.
NYS FTD head Fernando Mateo said, "We are saddened because the livery industry is being accused of having committed this crime, and we don't know whether it was a licensed, legitimate livery cab or whether it was one of the thousands of livery cabs that operate at this hour of the night without a license." Lopez had allegedly been crossing the street to pick up a milk crate to sit on as she waited for Harlem East Life Plan to open at 6 a.m. so she could pick up methadone. The Bronx woman was mother to three children.
Meanwhile, friends of a hit and run victim in Williamsburg are looking for information about the driver. And Through A Day writes that victim Serena was struck while biking at South 4th Street and Wythe Avenue in Brooklyn around 2:30 p.m. yesterday. The driver sped off, and Serena is suffering from "a punctured lung, broken pelvis, among several other severe injuries and is in the ICU at Bellevue Hospital. She is currently unconscious under heavy sedation." They're currently looking for any witnesses.
[UPDATE] A friend of Serena's got in contact with us to clear up some confusion about her accident. Namely, that they're not sure it was a hit and run. Jack explains:
The blog post [on And Through A Day] was kind of written in the heat of the moment. This is literally what we know. We don't know if the accident was a hit or run or not. We don't know what happened to Serena from the time she left the restaurant she was at to when she was loaded into the ambulance. She was on her bike. From what I was told she was picked up at South 4th and Wythe St at 2:26 p.m. and the hospitals put out an all units bulletin because it was so serious. Police were on scene when the ambulance picked her up. We don't know who called 911 or anything in the police report, and that won't be released until Monday. The driver might have been the one to call 911. Our guess though is that it was a bystander, but until we have the police report we have no idea of knowing if it was a hit and run or not. An initial CAT scan said no damage to her head, she's stable but in a ton of pain. Her boyfriend told me that it was the worse accident he had ever seen. Until we know more, everybody has just got to stay calm.
[UPDATE, 5:40 p.m.] Jack tells us that as of now there is no driver identified on the police report, so the accident is looking to be a hit and run. They're currently looking for the driver involved.
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Jaya Saxena
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