On the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, early Monday morning, a woman standing outside a disabled car was the victim of a drunk driver who rammed into the back of the disabled car. This collision catapulted Aissatou Diallo over the guardrail approximately 30 feet to the street below.
Diallo was in her nephew’s 1997 Toyota Rav4 travelling home from a family wedding, when her sister-in-law, who was driving a 2005 Chevy, got a flat tire. The car with Diallo and two of her young children pulled over near the Meeker Avenue exit in front of the Toyota. The victim warned her family members to get off the highway to be safe, but she herself was struck when a man, 43, in a 2011 BMW travelling westbound plowed into the back of the Chevy, according to relatives.
Diallo, a mother of four from Guinea was hit by the Chevy as a result of the chain reaction. The impact sent Diallo flying off the elevated highway and onto Meeker Avenue below while eight of her family members watched in horror. Diallo was pronounced dead at Elmhurst Hospital the New York Post reports.
Aissatou Diallo’s nephew Saliou Diallo, 33, who was driving the Toyota with his aunt and her 16 and 10-year-old children, saw the crash, allegedly caused by a “speeding” driver who relatives estimated was going over 100 miles per hour (mph).
Saliou added that the BMW driver, who sources said was intoxicated, tried to flee the scene on foot, but was restrained by Saliou and his cousin until police arrived. “He smelled of liquor all over,” Saliou said. “He said he wasn’t driving, but he was the only person in the car.”
Diallo’s 16-year-old son Abdoulaye, who was in the Toyota said the BMW driver, “must have been driving 120 mph when he crashed into the cars from behind. I saw the car coming and then I had to jump out of the way.” He said he wanted the motorist thrown in jail, saying, “I want justice.”
Sobbing family members, including her husband of 27 years, Amadou Diallo mourned Diallo at her Staten Island residence on Monday. She was a stay-at-home mom who worked with special-needs kids, according to the New York Post.
