An 87-year-old woman is dead after she was hit by a car left running in Gravesend on Wednesday afternoon.
According to preliminary police investigation, the victim was attempting to park their car in a driveway on the 2100 block of West 10th Street at 2:57 p.m., but didn’t put the car in park — causing it to roll back and strike the victim, identified Thursday as local resident Joan Behan, who was walking behind it.
Firefighters from Engine Company 253, Tower Ladder 153 and NYPD’s Emergency Truck 6 and NYPD officers — who were alerted to the incident through a 911 call — found the victim pinned under the vehicle, according to eyewitnesses at the scene.
Paramedics transported her to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn with severe head and torso injuries. She was pronounced dead shortly after.
According to Citizen, a personal safety network that allows anyone with the app to post real-time details on suspected crimes, the driver fled the scene on foot. The NYPD’s Highway Collision Investigation was on the scene and is actively investigating the incident.
So far this year, four traffic fatalities have been reported in the 61st Precinct, which includes Gravesend, according to the latest police statistics — twice the number of deaths reported by the same time in 2023. A whopping 17 traffic fatalities have been reported across Brooklyn as of April 7, the data show.
Last week, a bus driver was killed in a hit-and-run as he stepped out of his car in East New York — and a 47-year-old man died two weeks after he was hit by a driver while riding his bicycle in Midwood.
