A stricken mom testified Monday how she found her daughter’s battered body under an alleged drunken driver’s truck in a horrific July 4 crash in Manhattan — and watched the life ebb from her child.
“I saw her — Emily,” Liliana Ruiz said, referring to daughter Emily Ruiz, 31, who was among four people killed by accused boozed-up motorist Daniel Christopher Hyden.
“Her eyes were wide open, like saucers,” the mother said. “I’m just looking at her. I’m tapping her face, telling her, ‘Everything’s gonna be OK. Emily, don’t close your eyes.
“I see her lips turning purple, her eyes are going shut, and she’s trying not to close them,” Ruiz said. “But at one point, they completely closed.
“And I’m thinking, ‘I just watched my daughter die.’ “
Liliana herself only survived the July 4, 2024, vehicular onslaught because she had gone to the bathroom.
Her daughter’s 7-year-old son, Kai-El, would later heartbreakingly bring his toy first-aid kit to the hospital — where his mother lay brain-dead — to try “to help the doctors” treating his mom, prosecutors said.
Liliana described how she eventually made the painful decision to take her daughter off life support.
“My daughter was brain-dead, so I had to make the choice,” she testified.
Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos responded, “And what choice did you make?”
The shattered mom replied, “To let her go.”
Her heart-wrenching account of the tragedy occurred on the first day of trial in the wreck that also killed Herman Pinkney, 38, his aunt, 59-year-old Lucille Pinkney, and Ana Morel, 43.
Seven others were injured as Hyden allegedly slammed his Ford F-150 into Corlears Hook Park, where the neighborhood was celebrating Independence Day on the night of July 4.
Prosecutors said Hyden, 44, kept his foot on the gas after striking 11 people — with the bodies under the SUV the only thing stopping him from continuing to drive.
“My adrenaline started to rush,” survivor Hector Moreno, a friend of the Pinkneys, said at the non-jury trial. “I stood on the bleachers, I saw the driver. He looked disoriented.
“He still had his foot on the gas,” Moreno said. “I just started hitting him as hard as I could, and I didn’t stop until I couldn’t even hit him anymore. The last thing I heard was, ‘Help get Herman out from underneath the car!’ “
Hyden, who was denied entrance to a local watering hole earlier for being too drunk, was roughed up by the crowd and arrested, with cops reporting his blood-alcohol level at .17, more than twice the legal limit.
Morel’s mom, Zolia Hernandez was in upstate New York at the time and would only learn of her daughter’s violent death hours later, she testified before Supreme Court Judge April Newbauer.
Lucille Pinkney’s sister, Liliana Lewis, had to identify both her sibling’s and her nephew’s bodies at the hospital.
“I see my nephew all bloodied up,” Lewis testified. “I saw him myself. He was dead. Then I went to the next room to see my sister. She was dead.”
Hyden’s lawyer, Theodore Herlich, said during open statements that his client had suffered a foot injury during a fight at the club earlier in the night and suggested that may have contributed to the deadly crash.
“He was limping,” Herlick told the judge. “He had injured his right foot that he uses to drive a car. I will note that at one half second before the crash the driver simultaneously had one foot … on the accelerator at 100% and another foot on the brake, causing it to decelerate from 52 mph to 48.1 mph.”
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