The four-year-old daughter of an award-winning actress has been killed in a tragic car accident, along with another child after a driver slammed into a group of people at a Brooklyn pedestrian crossing. Witnesses reported that the out-of-control driver dragged a toddler still in his stroller with her car for a 100 yards.
The accident claimed the lives of one-year-old Josh Lew and four-year-old Abigail Blumenstein, whose mother is Tony-award winning actress Ruthie Anne Miles. Miles, who is pregnant, was injured in the accident but is expected to recover. The other boy’s mother, Lauren Lew, was also injured in the horrifying accident.
“It was horrible to watch,” witness LaSalle told New York Daily News. “I’m still in shock. The white car was going really fast. The pregnant mother was facedown and the baby flew into the street.”
“She dragged the stroller and…the other baby was pinned under the car. It was something you see in a horror movie.”
Andrew Macaluso, a medical student at the scene of the crash, told the New York Post that in the aftermath of the horrible crash, Lauren Lew rushed to her dying son and tried to revive him. “The mom was sitting there next to him screaming,’’ fourth-year medical student Andrew Macaluso, 26, told The Post. “She was just kind of, ‘Oh, God, this can’t be happening! Tell me this isn’t happening! What’s going on?’”
When Miles saw that her daughter had been hit, witnesses reported that she tried to get up to help. By this point, first responders were administering CPR to the little girl. “I ran to the [mom], telling her, ‘Please, Miss, stay down.’ … She tried getting up on her knees and fell back down,” witness June Clark-Smith said.
Miles was reportedly heading from a church event at a nearby community center.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that an investigation into the incident is underway.
“For Chirlane and I obviously this is very personal,” the mayor said at City Hall, as reported by New York Daily News. “It occurred in our neighborhood, very, very close to our home.
“This loss of life is tragic and painful for all of us, particularly those of us who are parents,” de Blasio said, who expanded on the personal element of the horrific accident.
“It’s another reminder of why we have to double our efforts on Vision Zero, to work for a day when this never happens to any family. This is an intersection that we happen to know very, very well,” he said. “We have crossed it many times with Dante and Chiara when they were kids, so this is personal. And we are praying for the families who have gone through this tragedy and we will do everything we can to help them.”
Miles won the 2015 Tony for best featured actress for her work in “The King and I.”
Obviously, this is an absolutely horrifying story. There really are no words. We just ask you to pray for the families affected, and ask that the Lord might bring healing to them as they recover from their injuries and deal with the grief of losing a child.