Funeral Friday for Bronx River Parkway crash victims

  Eyewitness NewsBRONX (WABC) -- Hundreds of people gathered in the Bronx Friday to bid a final farewell to three generations of one family. The seven family members were killed when their SUV plunged from the Bronx River Parkway on to the grounds of the Bronx Zoo.

Seven hearses - one for each of the victims - pulled up to the old brick church.

The hearses - two white and five black - arrived at the Church of St. Raymond, where 10 children in blue school uniforms stood in a straight line on the steps. A white limousine covered in paper signs with the names of the dead also drove up to the church, located behind a small cemetery. Several Fordham University vans unloaded mourners. Two of the victims worked in the custodial department of the school.

Killed in Sunday's wreck were Jacob Nunez and Ana Julia Martinez, who were visiting from the Dominican Republic community of Manuel Bueno; their daughters, Maria Gonzalez and Maria Nunez, and three grandchildren.

The children were Jocelyn Gonzalez, 10, the daughter of the driver, and Niely Rosario, 7, and Marly Rosario, 3, both daughters of Nunez.

Police say Maria Gonzalez, the driver of the SUV, clipped a highway divider and damaged a tire before the vehicle flew off a highway and plummeted six stories into a ravine.

More than 1,000 mourners streamed into a Bronx funeral home Thursday to pay their respects at a wake for the victims. The line stretched down Unionport Road and around the corner onto Odell Street. The driver's son's fraternity has raised more than $110,000 for the family.

"It hurts a lot to know that I used to be friends with her, and now she's not here anymore," friend Chelsea Pererya said. "It's hard."

With so many dead, there were countless goodbyes to say. The line outside the Parkchester Funeral Home stretched for blocks and lasted for hours before the mourners finally reached the seven coffins inside.

"We're here today," one mourner said. "We don't know tomorrow."

Pereyra was a close friend to Jocelyn Gonzalez.

"We used to be at the same table together," she said. "It was very sad to know that she's not here with us anymore."

The three girls and their mothers will be buried in the Bronx. The bodies of the grandparents will be flown back to the Dominican Republic.

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7 dead in Bronx River Parkway crash

BRONX (WABC) -- An out-of-control van careered across several lanes of traffic on a New York City highway overpass Sunday, then plunged more than 50 feet off the side of the road and landed in a ravine on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, killing all seven people aboard, including three children.

Police identified the dead adults as 85-year-old Jacob Nunez and 81-year-old Ana Julia Martinez, both from the Dominican Republic, and their daughters, 45-year-old Maria Gonzalez, and 39-year-old Maria Nunez, both from the Bronx. Police say Gonzalez was driving. The children were identified as 10-year-old Jocelyn Gonzalez, the daughter of the driver, and 7-year-old Niely Rosario and 3-year-old Marly Rosario, both daughters of Nunez.

In one horrific moment, their Honda Pilot went from the family car to a mass coffin.

All 7 victims inside suffered the same last breath together.

12:30 Sunday afternoon, when many families are on the road, somehow the SUV lost control, bounced off the barrier, screamed across the southbound lanes of the Bronx River Parkway and kept going...right over the guardrail.

Experts believe it flew another 75 feet in the air before it began the sickening, fatal plunge: a fast free fall about 60 feet down into a wooded section of the Bronx Zoo.

Thankfully, it is a remote area where visitors are not allowed and where there are no animals.

Even the most experienced emergency crews who raced to the scene were shaken by what they found inside.

"Sometimes you come across events that are horrific," said FDNY Deputy Chief Ronald Werner. "And this was one of them."

"Everybody was taken back by it because everybody has a relative," said FDNY Deputy Chief Howard Sickles.

"Everybody knows a child, everybody has a grandparent. And you can see the emotion on everybody. It's very upsetting."

This is the family portrait rescue workers carried from the wreckage:

An elderly man and woman in their 80's, a 45 year old female in the driver's seat, a 39 year old female and 3 young girls, ages 10, 7 and 3.

Officials say all the victims were buckled in which explains why their bodies were not thrown from the Honda.

But crews did check the surrounding area just in case there were more passengers.

In the end, the medical examiner needed a caravan to remove all the victims.

It was a bitter procession followed by the crumpled pieces of the car.

As accident investigators try to find out why and how Maria Gonzalez lost control, one family is left mourning 3 generations of their own.

"Obviously the vehicle was travelling at a high rate of speed," said Werner. "It hit something that caused it to become airborne. It travelled over the railing and a distance of maybe 75-80 feet before it came down and hit the ground."

The vehicle lay mangled hours later, its right doors ripped off and strewn amid the trees along with items from the car. Next to the heavily wooded area are subway tracks and a train yard.

The southbound side of the highway was closed briefly Sunday afternoon while police investigated but later reopened.

The medical examiner's office said it expected to release the victims' causes of death on Monday.

The accident was the second in the past year where a car fell off the same stretch of the Bronx River Parkway. Last June, the driver of an SUV heading north lost control and the SUV hit a divider, bounced through two lanes of traffic and fell 20 feet over a guardrail, landing on a pickup truck in a parking lot. The two people in the SUV were injured.

City agencies will be asked to look at safety issues on the highway including guardrail height, Bronx borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said in a statement Sunday.

"My prayers, as well as those of my office and all Bronxites, go out to the families of the seven victims," he said.

The wreck was the deadliest in New York City since the driver of a tour bus returning from a Connecticut casino in March 2011 lost control and slammed into a pole that sheared the bus nearly end to end, killing 14 passengers.

In 2009, just north of New York City in suburban Westchester County, a woman carrying a vanload of children drove nearly two miles in the wrong direction on a highway before colliding with an SUV. Eight people were killed, including four children.

An autopsy determined that the woman, Diane Schuler, had downed at least 10 drinks and had smoked marijuana as recently as 15 minutes before the wreck.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS OF THE BRONX ZOO CRASH

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One dead in Belt Parkway crash

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- There was a deadly accident on the Belt Parkway in Queens on Saturday.

It happened near 116th Street just before 4:30 a.m.

Police say a 2009 Toyota Corolla, operated by a 26-year-old man was traveling eastbound on South Conduit Avenue when it left the roadway and rolled over onto the eastbound Belt Parkway.

The car was carrying four passengers.

One of them, a 21-year-old woman, was ejected from the rear of the vehicle. She was taken to Jamaica Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

The driver and other passengers were also taken to the hospital. They are in stable condition.

There have been no arrests as police investigate the accident.

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