UPDATED 11 a.m.
A 1-year-old girl was killed on Thursday night after a truck hit her stroller while she and her mother were crossing an East Elmhurst street, police said.
At around 8:45 p.m. on March 23, police responded to a 911 call of a 1-year-old child that had been struck by a vehicle at the intersection of 94th Street and 23rd Avenue.
Officers from the 115th Precinct responded to the scene and found that the baby, who has been identified as 1-year-old Skylar Perkins, had suffered severe trauma to the head and body.
According to police, Perkins’ mother was pushing the infant, who was secured in her stroller, across 23rd Avenue in the crosswalk when a white Dodge Ram, operated by 44-year-old Wallace Ramirez of Ashfield, MA, made a right hand turn onto 23rd Avenue from 94th Street, striking the stroller.
Officers transported Perkins and her mother in the back of their police car to Elmhurst Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Ramirez stayed at the scene following the incident. He was arrested and charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.
This crash happened not far from where 8-month-old Navraj Raju was struck and killed in a stroller last year. According to Transportation Alternatives, while traffic fatalities are down thanks to the Vision Zero initiative, there are several safety improvements that are still not present at thousands of intersections throughout the city.
The group is seeking more crosswalk signals, raised, high-visibility crosswalks and “daylighting” treatments that remove parking at and near the corners, which provide a clear line of sight for drivers to see pedestrians.
