NEW YORK (AP) — A passenger in a car made a desperate cell phone call to a friend, saying the driver was drunk and the car was going far too fast. Moments later, authorities said, the call cut off and the caller was dead.
Diony Richez, 20, of Freeport, N.Y., was one of four people killed early Monday in the crash on a highway in Queens. Two others were hospitalized in critical condition with multiple fractures and head injuries.
Before the car crashed, a frantic Richez called a friend saying that he and his half-brother were the only sober ones in the car, which was speeding at 100 mph. Then the line went dead as the car went out of control at 12:09 a.m.
The vehicle slammed into a tree and caught fire, and the occupants had to be pulled from the car.
Yulanda Thompson, the woman whom Richez called, said he told her, "these people are drinking and going crazy."
"I wish I could've done something to stop it," she said. "I just really wish I could've helped." She said he had gotten in the car because he had no other way to get home after going out partying with friends.
Richez and three others, including the 25-year-old driver whose name was not released, were pronounced dead at the scene. The other victims were identified as Alilexis Guzman, 28, and Mayra del Rosario, 23. Richez's half brother, Lenny Castro, 23, and Engles Caro, 24, Castro and Richez's cousin, were hospitalized.
Police said that the circumstances of the accident remain unknown and that an investigation was continuing.
Said Yohanda Caro, Caro's 17-year-old sister: "It's too hard to believe. You hear it on the news all the time, but it's not supposed to happen to you."