By Gina Martinez
A Flushing woman charged in a hit-and-run that left another woman dead thought she had struck a chunk of ice and continued to go to work, according to a criminal complaint from the Queens District Attorney’s Office.
Geum Min, 58, was arrested last Thursday and charged with leaving the scene of an accident, failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care, according to the NYPD. Police said Min struck 77-year-old Jun Sum Yim near Parsons Boulevard and 32nd Avenue on Jan. 10 around 7 a.m. When police arrived, they found Yim lying on the road, unconscious and unresponsive. EMS took Yim to Flushing Hospital Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Police said that Yim was struck midblock between 32nd and 33rd Avenues on Parsons Boulevard and that Min fled the scene. According to the criminal complaint, Min was driving her daughter’s 2016 Toyota Corolla on her way to work at Flushing Hospital when she made a right turn on Parsons Boulevard and struck Yim, who was in the crosswalk and had the pedestrian signal in her favor. The criminal complaint said Yim was knocked to the ground, went underneath the Corolla and was dragged for 193 feet as Min continued to drive.
Min told officers that when she made the right turn onto Parsons Boulevard, she felt a bump “like something got stuck underneath the car,” she said.
“I thought it was a chunk of ice or something like, that so I just kept going,” she told officers. “I felt it dislodge and continued driving to work at Flushing Hospital.”
According to the complaint, Min did not stop or report the accident.
Once at work, Min heard about a pedestrian who had been struck on Parsons Boulevard, and she “started to get a weird feeling because I remembered that bump and the thing that got struck under my car.”
“I had a weird feeling all day that it might have been the pedestrian,“ she said, according to the complaint.
Min said she asked a colleague at the hospital if she should call the police, but her colleague told her she was probably overreacting, so she decided to not call the authorities. According to the complaint, she went on to finish her shift but “felt weird the whole time.”
After work, Min drove home and told her husband about the car and her weird feeling. She was arrested and charged the following day.
Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmart
