A 62-year-old Long Island nanny is in a coma after she pushed a 9-month-old boy in a stroller—whom she was taking care of—from an oncoming car on March 31.
“She took the hit from the vehicle. She saved a baby; that’s a hero to me,” spokeswoman Julie Scully of Rockville Centre, a village in New York’s Nassau County, told Reuters.
The boy is unharmed, police said.
The nanny was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital after the accident, and was placed into a medically induced coma the following day.
The nanny was crossing Hempstead Avenue when a woman turned her car into an intersection in Rockville Centre, heading towards them, Scully said.
Police said witnesses told them that the nanny pushed the stroller out of the way just in time before she was struck by a car making a left turn, according to ABC11.
The woman was dragged at least 20 feet, ABC11 reported. Apparently the driver was not aware that she was dragging the nanny through the intersection.
“Witnesses say that she didn’t see her and kept driving. They had to honk their horn to get her to stop,” said Rockville Centre Police Commissioner Charles Gennario.
“When my officers arrived they saw the victim underneath the car with her head protruding from the front of the car. She was turning purple and not breathing. They, with the assistance of some bystanders, were able to lift the car enough for her to be able to breathe,” Gennario said.
Police said the nanny’s name has not been released, but she is in critical condition.
The 75-year-old driver, who reportedly stayed at the scene, has not been charged.
