A taxi barreled out of control on Times Square, ramming a station wagon into a pedestrian and striking several other vehicles before coming to a stop.
A pregnant woman in the taxi was among 11 people injured in Monday morning’s crash. She began having contractions and later gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She, the taxi driver and a pedestrian were hospitalized Tuesday in critical condition.
The cab was driving on West 42nd Street when it struck a station wagon, which then hit a pedestrian, authorities said. The cab went around the station wagon, striking the pedestrian a second time, then sped off, and hit a minibus, a car and finally a row of taxicabs, police said.
“It was louder and louder: crunch, crunch, crunch,” a witness, Mahdy Parks, told The New York Times.
Authorities said criminal charges were pending against the taxi driver, 54-year-old Syed M. Zia. Emergency workers had to tear the roof off his vehicle to rescue him.
Zia was hospitalized with multiple broken bones and internal wounds that required emergency surgery, said Dr. Maurizio Miglietta, director of trauma at Bellevue Hospital Center.
His 8½-months pregnant passenger, Maria Stein of East Rutherford, N.J., had been on her way home from a checkup with her obstetrician. She suffered broken bones and a ruptured esophagus, Miglietta said.
After giving birth by Caesarean section Monday night, the woman was “awake, she is optimistic, but she’s in a good amount of pain,” he said.
The pedestrian was also in critical condition. Of the eight others who were hurt, six were treated at a hospital and released and two declined treatment.
The city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission said Zia had four moving violations on his record between 1994 and 2001.
