The inspection crews from the city’s Department of Transportation have gone from the Bell Boulevard overpass at the Long Island Expressway, where 18-year-old pedestrian Ivana Ivkovic was fatally injured after a chain-collision caused by a motorist running a red light.
At a make-shift shrine to the Cardozo High School senior, the flowers are fading, despite the attentions of her grieving mother, Mira Riera.
Not so in cyber-space.
In a public group created on the networking site, Facebook.com, friends and relatives wrote messages to the teen, killed on Saturday, September 15.
They reminisced about memories from Bayside schools M.S. 158 and Cardozo, and attempted to console one another.
“I still can’t believe it. You see this kind [of] thing on the news all the time, but you always say, that can’t happen to anyone I know. And then it does … It’s like reality just punched you in the face. You wake up and you realize, anyone can die, and it scares me,” wrote the group’s creator and Ivkovic’s cousin, Alex Rexha.
Tariq Zaman, a student at Aviation High School in Long Island City, wrote the very first Facebook message to his friend, the day after the fatal accident. It said, “Ivana, you were a great person and a better friend.”
Cardozo classmate Jonathan Tam wrote, “You will always be in our hearts.
Thanks for sharing such great times with us all. Although many may be in tears, I can only smile every time I think of you because of how many great memories we’ve had of you. That will never change.”
One entry, from Oakland Gardens resident Nancy Hudson described the crash scene.
“I didn’t know Ivana [Ivkovic], but my son and I were there right after the accident, watching as the rescue workers desperately tried to save her. When she left in the ambulance, I prayed all day that she would be OK, but when I saw all the flowers the next day I knew that she wasn’t and my heart broke. To her family and friends, I’m so very, very sorry for your loss. Rest in peace sweet girl, until we all meet again.”
On Monday, October 15, nearly two dozen flower bouquets remained at the site of the crash, at the northwest corner of the Horace Harding Expressway and Bell Boulevard. Friends also scrawled messages to Ivkovic in black permanent marker on guardrails overlooking the Long Island Expressway.
One message from “looney toon” Nicole read, “Ivana, you always had a smile on your face. I will miss you.”
- With additional reporting by Christina Santucci
