March 24, 2017 Staff Report
A one-year-old girl was killed last night in East Elmhurst after a truck ran over her stroller while she and her mother were crossing the street, police said.
According to a preliminary investigation, one-year-old Skylar Perkins was in a stroller being pushed across the crosswalk at 94th Street and 23rd Avenue last night around 8:45 p.m. when a white Dodge truck made a right turn in to the crosswalk and struck the stroller.
Nearby police officers responded, observing Perkins with severe trauma to the head and body. The officers drove the baby and her mother to Elmhurst Hospital, where the child was pronounced dead.
The truck driver, 44-year-old Wallace Ramirez of Ashfield, Mass., remained on the scene, and was arrested and charged with Failure to Yield to a Pedestrian and Failure to Exercise Due Care.
Featured Events
4 Comments
Paying attention to trafic is not enough if you are a pedestrian. I am a mom who walks daily for 10 blocks in Astoria pushing a stroller with my toddler in it. There are too many agresive drivers who don’t yield or wait for you even if they see you when they make a turn. Also they go really fast, so even if there was no car when you started walking they could still come at you out of no where and run you over. I have had so many close calls where I have looked, I have the green light and I am midway through the crosswalk and car turns without slowing down and expecting you to run away with the stroller! I wish there was a cop on every corrner to go after all those drivers who ignore the rules. I agree, we should all be more carefull and aware, but we should also all keep the laws, pedestrians and drivers alike.
Pay attention to your children. Jen say what you feel ,your right but your being too polite. Pay attention, forget your cell phone, watch the traffic, people need to get their heads out of the clouds. People need to put the phone down while they are walking. Wake up
It’s awful. Don’t know what happened here, but we’ve all seen strollers in Astoria being mindlessly pushed across the street or stopped just too close to fast moving traffic even if on the curb. From what I’ve read, this tragic incident may have occurred when the driver made a turn and did not or could not see the stroller.
.
I don’t like to get into anyone else’s business, but people forget what they are doing, are overly tired, or get distracted by their cell and what not. Maybe they don’t drive themselves and don’t know how easy it is for a driver to not see an object that is below the level of an adult’s head. Perhaps this danger is something that they need to be reminded of when they are not paying attention to the proximity of a stroller or small child to moving traffic. So say something. No one wants something like this to happen again.
My god what a tragedy. I dont know what happened here but i see a lot of woman looking to cross and they’re between cars and they dont realize the baby is out in harms way. My heart goes out to the mom and in no way am i saying this is what happened, but mothers out there, please show caution. Drivers too, maybe it wasnt his fault but everyone relax and show caution also, Even if you have the right of way.