79-year-old great-grandmother killed after being struck by 2 cars in Brooklyn
A family is mourning as police search for two drivers after a 79-year-old woman was hit by two different vehicles on Thursday night.
Authorities say the crash happened around 6:30 p.m. at New York Avenue and Herkimer Street in Crown Heights.
On Friday, family members identified the victim as Yvonne Sandiford.
A grey Nissan Rogue hit Sandiford while she was crossing the street and dragged her down the road.
Then a second car, a white Toyota Sienna, hit her as she laid on the road. Neither stopped to check on her and both drivers took off.
Her family said she was the matriarch of a very large family from Barbados and they are devastated there was more than one opportunity to save her life.
“If the first person stopped, maybe he could have saved her and helped, you never know,” her son Patrick Sandiford said.
She has 10 children and 23 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. She had been living in Brooklyn since 1991.
“This is so sudden and so devastating it’s killing us, but we’re trying to hang in there for one another, she was such a nice and beautiful person and she would want me to be strong, I know that, so I’m trying my best,” Sandiford said.
Grandson Nicholas Griffith said he recently talked to his grandmother to thank her for teaching him how to make seasoning. He said her cooking was the best.
“We were trying to get my fiance to learn how to make fishcakes, but sadly we can’t do that now, it hurts she won’t be here for the wedding,” Griffith said.
The investigation is ongoing as the search continues and the family is begging the drivers to come forward.