Blood drive for crash student

In a show of unity and support, more than 100 students and teachers turned out last week to donate blood and raise money for Andrew Tsai, the 19-year-old whose leg was severed in a chain reaction car accident outside Francis Lewis High School.
“This [the accident] hit us hard,” said a student who helped to organize the blood drive and who was in junior ROTC with Tsai. Originally scheduled for mid-March, the drive was moved up following the February 27 accident.
“We all take it personally if anything happens to the kids,” said Ana Piltawer with tears in her eyes. A language teacher and student organization advisor, Piltawer arranged the blood drive and donated herself.
She told The Queens Courier that Tsai’s accident, although the most grave, has not been the first at or around the school, which is on Booth Memorial Avenue and Utopia Parkway, near the Long Island Expressway.
“We have about 4,300 students,” said Piltawer. “We need more lights, speed bumps, crossing guards, something.”
According to Chris Gilbride, spokesperson for the Department of Transportation (DOT), there were two pedestrian injuries in the immediate vicinity in the past five years and only five vehicular accidents in 2005, four of which were non-reportable (meaning overall damage to the car was less than $1,000).
As for the driver of the vehicle, Zongling Zhu, 48, who is charged with felony assault, reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting it, Piltawer said, “We are very angry and hope that she will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This should set a precedent.”
Tsai is currently in critical condition in Bellevue Hospital, where doctors have awakened him from a medically-induced coma.
His sister, Amber, 16, said “he’s doing okay,” and that the family, who is considering the offers of a prosthetic leg for Andrew, is “trying to stay strong.”