In mid-November 2014, a 78-year old woman was charged in a Brooklyn court with a hit and run after knocking down a 14-year-old boy and leaving the scene. Cases like these are common in New York and throughout the country because car accidents are an unpleasant fact of life. In fact, every 1 minute, four people are hurt in automobile accidents around the nation. Most accidents are minor. Unfortunately, in this case, it was fatal. The promising young man died on the spot, but even more disconcerting is why this elderly woman just drove off as if it was nothing. The reason will baffle you.
Her car accident lawyer admits she left the scene
The elderly woman, identified as Lynn Reynolds was arraigned in court for fleeing the scene of a fatal accident. According to the prosecutors, after slamming into the teenager Mohammad Naiem Uddin, she got out of her red minivan for a few minutes then got back in and just drove off into her Kensington Home, just four blocks away. Her defense attorney claims that she did not see the victim because of the darkness that had set in at around 5 p.m. Her lawyer admitted she got out of the vehicle but she did not see anything, and that is why she left. The lawyer also noted that the collision occurred in the most frequent manner for pedestrian-involved crashes, which is a car making a left turn.
The woman says she thought someone threw a ball against her car
Now here comes the shocker; the woman left the scene because she thought she had simply hit a ball. She claims that once she felt she had slammed into something, she stopped and got out of her car to check what it was, and saw nothing because it was a little dark and her failing vision. She concluded that it was nothing or perhaps someone had simply thrown a ball against her car. The retired psychologist got back into her car and continued home. Her car accident lawyer said she is clearly saddened and distraught now that she learned she had hit a boy and that he died. The judge released her on a $25,000 bail. If convicted, the woman can get anything from probation to 7 years in prison.
The difficulty of her case
If they want to have any chance of getting a conviction, the prosecution would have to prove first that the woman had realized she had hit the boy before leaving the scene. According to her lawyer, this was just an accident, and in the end, she did not break any law.
This is just one of many examples in New York of how a seemingly simple auto accident case can quickly turn into a complicated mess especially if Murphy’s Law prevails. Both the defense and the prosecution have to answer plenty of difficult questions. Hence, both the victim and the accused need experienced lawyers that understand and can handle the obscurities that can arise after an auto accident.