A nine-months pregnant Brooklyn woman was killed Thursday morning by aconstruction loader clearing snow from the fierce nor’easter that dumped a foot of snow on the city.
Min Lin, 36, was dead on arrival at Maimonides Medical Center, but her nearly full-term baby boy survived after being delivered by Caesarean section. He was in critical condition.
“The baby is not looking good and [his father] is very worried,” said Song Qing Hwang, 34, a female roommate of the couple, who spoke on the phone to Lin’s grieving husband.
“I’m not sure what to feel. I feel very sad for the loss of my friend.”
The couple, who were married about eight years ago, have another son, Kevin, 6, who is staying with an aunt in Brooklyn, Hwang added.
Lin and her husband were loading groceries into the trunk of their car behind the Fei Long Market in Sunset Park at around 10:45 a.m. when tragedy struck.
The 42-year-old store owner smashed into Lin while backing up a Bobcat S250 he was using to plow the parking lot, sources said.
No charges were filed pending an investigation, but neighbors said they had seen the merchant driving erratically in the past.
“He almost hit me and my wife yesterday as we were going across the street. The guy was a speed demon,” said Marvin Lopez, 43, a janitor who lives across from the parking lot.
“I thought, that man is going to kill somebody someday. And look what happens.”
“Thank God they saved the baby, but I feel so bad for that family,” Lopez added.
The death was the worst of the weather-related harm from the storm — the first of a one-two winter punch that was expected to bring another 2 to 4 inches of snow into Friday morning.
A dozen pedestrians were struck by vehicles and there were about 70 serious car crashes citywide, the FDNY said.
In The Bronx, a 5-year-old girl tumbled out of a third-floor window while trying to clear snow from an air-conditioning unit at 224 East 164th St. around 2:30 p.m., cops said.
“She didn’t look good. She had an oxygen mask on and she wasn’t moving,” said neighbor Sam Jones, 63, after EMS workers rushed her into an ambulance.
The unidentified child was in stable condition at Lincoln Medical Center.
And in Brooklyn, nearly a dozen people narrowly avoided a frigid plunge into the East River when a gangway at the Greenpoint ferry terminal collapsed around 9 a.m.
Dr. Lindsay Lief of Brooklyn said she was waiting for an uptown ferry when she saw about 10 passengers board a boat headed downtown.
“As it pulled away, there was a big crash,” she said.
“If somebody was on the ramp when it fell, they would have ended up in the icy river. It could have been disastrous if someone was on it.”
NY Waterway, which operates the East River Ferry, said service to and from Greenpoint would be suspended at least through the weekend.
The National Weather Service measured 9¹/₂ inches of snow in Central Park as of 1 p.m.
All three major airports remained open, but more than 2,100 flights were canceled.
At La Guardia, Stephanie Hutton, 23, of Harlem, said she spent a sleepless Wednesday night inside the airport after her flight to Atlanta was canceled, then spent most of Thursday trying in vain to catch another flight.
“I took four days off to spend with my boyfriend and I can’t go anywhere,” said Hutton, who turns 24 on Monday.
“This is going to be the worst birthday and Valentine’s Day for me.”
Most Fashion Week shows went on as scheduled, but the storm forced attendees — some in stiletto heels — to scramble over mounds of snow and protect themselves from the whipping wind and snow with their purses.
(via New York Post)
