A grandfather suffered a fatal heart attack while driving his family, including a 1-year-old boy, in Queens on Sunday, crashing and rolling their SUV, authorities and witnesses said.
The 45-year-old driver was operating his Kia Sedona down 35th Avenue in Astoria when he suddenly suffered the attack around 4:45 p.m., cops said.
The car went up onto the sidewalk, hit a fire hydrant and flipped onto its side in front of the Ravenswood Houses.
Shocked bystanders raced over and began breaking the car’s windows to free the man’s 44-year old wife, 28-year-old daughter and two grandchildren, ages 10 and 1, cops and witnesses said.
“I heard this loud explosion, looked out the window, and people were jumping on top of the roof pulling them out,” said Amanda Spigner, 25. “It seemed like everybody was helping out.”
Spigner said the baby boy frantically crawled through broken glass to get out of the car before being scooped up by a man.
“The little boy, the baby, with braids, he crawled out himself,” she said. “[The man who found him] was trying rock him, calm him down. But the baby kept screaming.”
Another witness, Deja Daniels, 16, said good Samaritans tried to revive the driver before EMTs arrived and took him to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“Everybody was trying to help [the driver],” Daniels said. “They were giving him CPR. They said he wasn’t responding.”
The other occupants of the car were taken to Elmhurst General Hospital, where they were listed in serious but stable condition.