A substitute teacher was struck and killed by the driver of a yellow cab that jumped a curb after crashing into another vehicle in South Ozone Park early Saturday morning.
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A Long Island woman was struck and killed by the driver of a yellow cab in a chain-reaction crash in South Ozone Park during the early morning hours of Saturday, Dec. 28.
Vidya Dookran-Franco, 51, of Bernard Street in Merrick, was walking with two men on the sidewalk near the intersection of Lefferts Boulevard and 115th Avenue at 3:10 a.m. when the cab struck a vehicle and jumped the curb ramming the three pedestrians, police said Sunday.
Police from the 106th Precinct in Ozone Park responded to a 911 call of a vehicle collision and found Dookran-Franco pinned between the yellow cab and a wall with severe trauma to her body near the two injured men.
EMS rushed all three to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where Dookran-Franco, a substitute teacher who was politically active in her Five Towns community, succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead a short while later. Both men, aged 49 and 44, suffered minor injuries and were listed in stable condition.
A preliminary investigation by the NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad determined that the 23-year-old cab driver was behind the wheel of a 2023 Toyota Rav4 traveling eastbound on 115th Avenue when he slammed into a 2017 Honda Accord driven by a 25-year-old man who was heading northbound on Lefferts Boulevard. After the initial impact, the Toyota mounted the northeast curb and struck the three victims.
Both drivers remained at the scene and were not injured during the collision. No arrests have been made, and the NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad’s investigation remains ongoing.