Kerry Kennedy doesn’t remember a thing about her terrifying, rush-hour dash down a Westchester highway, according to a source who insisted that Gov. Cuomo’s ex-wife wasn’t driving impaired.
“They think she may have had some sort of seizure,” a Kennedy source told The Post.
The family now fears the mother of three daughters by Cuomo may be suffering from a previously undiagnosed medical condition.
“This is terrifying for her because she doesn’t know why it happened,” the source said.
Kennedy, 52, was heading south on I-684 at about 8 a.m. Friday when she began driving erratically, sideswiping a tractor-trailer with her 2008 Lexus RX 350 and riding on a flat tire before leaving the highway in North Castle and pulling over at the bottom of the exit ramp.
Police found her slumped over the wheel of the car with no idea of what happened, the source said.
“She does not remember how she got to the side of the road. All she remembers is feeling very woozy, and then the cops were there,” the source said.
She was dressed in tennis clothes and was likely headed to play, another source said.
A Breathalyzer test proved negative for alcohol but, according to reports, the late Robert F. Kennedy Sr.’s daughter told police she had taken Ambien, a powerful sleeping pill.
The family source yesterday claimed that Kennedy, in her confused state, told cops she “may” have taken Ambien.
The Bedford resident, the seventh of RFK’s 11 children, was charged with driving while ability impaired by drugs. She was released with a summons, and must appear in North Castle court Tuesday.
But the family source said Kennedy’s blood and urine were tested at Northern Westchester Hospital Friday, and came back negative for drugs. Police are waiting on results of their own blood tests.
Ambien was at the center of her cousin Patrick’s legal troubles in May 2006. The then-Rhode Island congressman pleaded guilty to drugged driving after crashing his car in Washington, DC, admitting he got behind the wheel after taking the insomnia medication.
Lawyer Susan Chana Lask has crusaded against the popular prescription drug, saying its side effects are too dangerous.
Lask said she knows of cases in which people have taken Ambien and gotten behind the wheel of a car and engaged in such strange behavior that she helped coin the term “Ambien Zombie.”
Friday’s incident comes just two months after Kerry’s longtime friend, college roommate and sister-in-law Mary Richardson Kennedy, committed suicide following a long struggle with depression and a messy divorce from Kerry’s brother, Bobby Jr.
Kerry married Cuomo in 1990. They split in 2003. Cuomo has declined to comment.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona