Mob stops woman driver who killed man

A Middle Village man was killed Monday, October 8 when a drunk driver hit him and then tried to flee the scene.
At approximately 11 a.m., Franz Fuerch, 81, and his wife were getting into their parked car at Metropolitan Avenue and 74th Street when Diana Toro, 29, drove her van through an intersection and struck Fuerch.
Witnesses say Toro did not even attempt to stop the van. Instead, a mob of onlookers was forced to chase after Toro, eventually blocking her van three blocks away and holding her until police from the 104th Precinct arrived.
Toro was arrested and charged with second-degree vehicular manslaughter, DWI, criminally negligent homicide, and leaving the scene of a deadly accident. Toro was also driving without a license, police say.
Franz was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Franz’ widow, who declined to give her name, kept her comments brief.
“If there was one thing I would want to see in print, it would be that I love my husband,” she said. “We had a long life together. Right now, we have funeral arrangements to make and so forth.”
“I was just sitting at work when I heard a noise so loud, louder than a car crash, like a bomb,” said local real estate agent Guy Sieligowski in published reports. “I ran outside, and the first thing I saw was two men yelling after a van, yelling “Stop that van!”
Witness Jessica Santa, 26, said she saw “blood all over the street.”
“The car was a mess,” said Santa in published reports. “The door was bent the wrong way, and it was just hanging by a thread.”
Franz is survived by his wife, three children and four grandchildren.