A woman who was out celebrating her birthday was killed when a taxi collided with a box truck that then jumped an East Harlem curb, authorities said.
Olga Rivera, 65, was out for a birthday stroll with her husband when she was suddenly crushed by the large white truck at the corner of Park Avenue and East 102 Street, cops said.
The truck was traveling south on Park and had a green light as it sailed through the intersection of 102nd Street. That’s when a taxi traveling west on 102nd Street slammed into the side of the truck, causing a chain reaction crash that left Rivera dead and the occupants of the taxi in serious condition.
“I saw her yesterday,” said the woman’s distraught daughter Vivian Rivera. “I told her happy birthday.”
Rivera said her mom was planning to celebrate her special day with a big party planned for the 17th of this month.
“She had a happy life,” she added.
Witnesses said the dead woman’s husband watched in disbelief as his wife lay dead under the box truck.
“He was saying that it was her birthday in Spanish,” said Edwin Pagan. “He was lamenting the fact that it couldn’t have happened on a worse day.”
“She was bleeding out of the ears,” he added “There was a huge pool of blood.”
A woman who lives nearby said Rivera was walking just a few steps ahead of her husband when the huge white truck jumped the curb and struck her.
“She looked bad,” said Reyna Alvarado, 43. “She was with her husband. Her husband was ok. They were two old people walking slow, but she was three or four steps ahead of him.”
“She was bleeding and shaking,” she added. “She was cons but she couldn’t talk. The husband was panicking and crying a lot.
The driver of the taxi was taken to St. Lukes while his two passengers were treated at Cornell Medical Center, cops said.
