A 9-year-old girl whose mom was killed when a suspected drunken driver plowed into the family’s car in Queens on Sunday doesn’t know her mother is dead yet and keeps asking for her, relatives said Monday.
“[She] is asking for her mother, and we can’t tell her,’’ said cousin Tariq Lallmohamed, 20, noting that little Sara Rasool was “very attached” to her 40-year-old mom, Zaalika Rasool, and is still recovering from her own injuries.
Sara, her mother and her father, Azaan Rasool, were heading home from a mosque around 5 p.m. when a driver in a BMW blew through a stop sign at a high speed before slamming into the rear of their car in Ozone Park, authorities and witnesses said.
Rasool was behind the wheel of the family’s red Toyota Camry on 115th Avenue — waiting at the stop sign to make a left turn onto 130th Street — at the time. The BMW X5 SUV was going more than 50 mph, police and witnesses said.
Sara and her mother were ejected from their vehicle. Meanwhile, the driver of the other car, who witnesses said appeared drunk, fled.
“I’m still in shock. I saw her on the ground right there in front of me,” Azaan Rasool said of his dead wife. “I saw my wife first, and I knew she was dead, and then I looked for my daughter who was 6 or 7 feet away from the car. I started screaming, ‘Help! Call 911!’
“I thought it was a dream while it was happening. I tried to speed up to avoid him, but he was going too fast,” said a distraught Rasool. “My wife and daughter came out of the rear window.”
Rasool said he doesn’t yet have the heart to tell Sara — who is still hospitalized in critical condition at Long Island Jewish Hospital — about everything that happened.
When Sara woke up at the hospital, “She asked me what happened. I didn’t answer her. She needs to recover first,” Rasool said, who added that Sara suffered head, neck and foot injuries.
Family members and friends described Zaalika Rasool, a mother of three, as an avid gardener who loved to cook. The tight-knit Guyanese family was set to take a cruise to the Dominican Republic next week, relatives said.
“I don’t have any words,” said a son, Shaan Rasool, 20, who rushed to the scene of the car wreck when he got a phone call from his cousin and found his father sobbing.
“I’ve never seen him look that upset ever. He was crying. He’s never cried a day in my life. He said, ‘I know she’s dead,’ ” said Shaan.
Shaan, who said his mother worked in administration for the Department of Transportation for 15 years, was the type of woman who “was always there for you.”
Family members said they were faced with tragedy 15 years ago when Azaan’s brother lost his wife on 9/11.
“This is the second tragedy. Everything came back to us right away,” said Sara’s grandmother Farida Rasool, 71.