A 50-year-old woman is dead after being struck by the driver of an SUV in Flatbush, Brooklyn on Saturday.
Police say Midwood resident Aracely Courtenay was crossing East 21st Street, near the intersection with Ditmas Avenue, just before 7 p.m. on Feb. 18 when stepped into a “depression” in the roadway, causing her to fall to the pavement.
At that point, the 58-year-old driver of a Toyota Highlander SUV was traveling northbound on East 21st Street and was making a right turn on Ditmas Avenue when he struck the fallen Courtenay, police say. Officers found Courtenay with severe head trauma; she was brought to Kings County Hospital where she was pronounced dead.
The driver remained on the scene and no arrests have been made.
The fatal crash took place just one block from the site of another fatal crash involving a Toyota SUV. That crash, at Ditmas Avenue and East 22nd Street, claimed the life of 8-year-old Jadann Williams in 2015.
The news caps off a gruesome President’s Day Weekend on the city’s streets. On Friday evening, 7-year-old Naadhun Dolma was fatally struck by an SUV driver who blew through a stop sign in Astoria; no arrests have been made.
Later that night, a 52-year-old woman was fatally struck in Far Rockaway by an NYPD officer driving their cruiser to an emergency call. The driver, with three other cops aboard, crashed into another car as both attempted to turn. Police say that led the other car to spin out and the NYPD cruiser to strike the woman, who remains unidentified, and crash into another car. The four officers were taken to Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital on Long Island with minor injuries.
Last week, one man died and eight others were injured after 62-year-old Weng Sor allegedly suffered a psychotic break and began deliberately plowing a U-Haul truck into pedestrians and cyclists in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Sunset Park.
A total of 257 people were killed on city streets in 2022, according to the city Department of Transportation; that’s down from 2021 levels but above lows seen in 2018. Sixteen people died in traffic collisions in the first month of 2023, according to DOT.
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