Updated 4:02 p.m. | Seven people were killed on Sunday after a minivan that they were in lost control and fell several dozen feet from a Bronx River Parkway overpass, coming to rest in a tram yard inside the Bronx Zoo, law enforcement officials said.
Three of the dead in the one-vehicle accident were children, said a spokesman for the Fire Department, Jim Long. All of the dead were in the minivan.
The accident occurred around 12:30 p.m. on the southbound lanes of the parkway, just north of East 180th Street. A police spokesman said that the minivan was heading south in the passing lane when it lost control and struck the median; witnesses told the police that it appeared that a tire had blown.
The minivan then veered right, across the other two southbound traffic lanes, and fell over a guardrail into a wooded area, landing upside down.
“Sometimes you come upon events that are horrific and this is one of them,” Deputy Chief Ronald Werner, of Division 7, said at a brief news conference less than three hours after the accident.
Mr. Long said that the victims included three girls, ages 12, 10 and 7; three women, ages 80, 45 and 30; and an 84-year-old man. It was not immediately clear if the victims were all related.
An official with the Bronx Zoo said that the van landed within the zoo’s southeast boundary. “This did happen on the southeast side of the zoo, far from any public areas, where there were no people, no animals, and no exhibits,” the person said. Much of the zoo’s 265 acres are wooded and not in use.
No comments:
Post a Comment