A Brooklyn driver struck and seriously injured a 17-year-old girl as she crossed a dangerous Flatbush street that pedestrian advocates have been fighting to tame for years.
Eyewitnesses said the teen was crossing Parkside Avenue from north to south in the middle of the long block between Ocean and Flatbush avenues when a car hit her and knocked her to the pavement on March 4.
“The girl was facedown in the middle of the street for about 10–15 minutes,” said Eddy Petit Jr., who was walking home from the library when he came upon the gruesome scene.
Police said that the girl was jaywalking between two parked vehicles, and the Fire Department confirmed the that emergency responders transported the victim from the scene near the Pioneer Supermarket to Kings County Hospital at around 5:13 pm.
Petit said the scene was bleak; police cordoned off much of the roadway while FDNY paramedics put a neck brace on the girl and loaded her into an ambulance.
The driver of the car remained at the scene for hours after the accident, he said.
That block of Parkside Avenue has long been the target of safety-minded activists — who eventually convinced the Department of Transportation to conduct a study revealing the intersection at Ocean Avenue to be more dangerous than 99 out of 100 crossings borough-wide.
The city fixed up the intersection — which is the site of about 20 injuries per year — and even closed a vehicular entrance to Prospect Park last summer, but residents say the tune-ups haven’t gone far enough.
Now neighbors say the city must work harder to change the culture of dangerous driving if planners are serious about making the area safer.
“People drive very aggressively and very angrily there,” said Madeleine Fix-Hansen, who fought for years to get the Ocean and Parkside avenues intersection redesigned after a hit-and-run driver struck and injured her mother. “The next leg is that the police start to ticketing people around there.”
No charges were filed against the driver, and Kings County Hospital did not return calls for updates on the teenager’s condition.
Reach reporter Eli Rosenberg at erosenberg@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2531. And follow him at twitter.com/emrosenberg.
