NY Post

Hope Turnes to Deeper Mourning as Baby Dies

Hope turned to deeper mourning today after a baby delivered by C-section following a horrific hit-and-run crash in Williamsburg died one day after his parents.

A Williamsburg man and his pregnant wife were killed on the way to a hospital yesterday, but their unborn son was delivered by C-section.

The firstborn child of Nachman and Raizel Glauber — delivered prematurely as his 7-months-pregnant mom died — was in serious but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan last night but died early this morning.

Community leader Isaac Abraham said he was told around 5:30 a.m. that the baby had died.

Sources told The Post that the baby will be circumcised and named but a funeral will not be held.

The child will likely be buried along with his parents at Kiryas Joel in upstate New York, sources said.

Thousands of mourners at Khal Yitav Lev synagogue in Williamsburg buried the newborn’s 21-year-old parents yesterday.

The baby, she said, will be named for his father.

“They were always glowing,” Gluck said of the Hasidic couple, who married in January 2012. “They were just starting out with their life, building a family. They were very excited. That’s what makes it so tragic.”

Raizel and Nachman Glauber, both 21, were killed in a hit-and-run crash in Brooklyn.Members of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community mourn yesterday over the coffins of Raizel and Nachman Glauber, whose son was delivered by C-section after both were killed in a crash. The baby, in serious but stable condition last night, will be named for his father, a relative said.

Raizel and Nachman Glauber, both 21, were killed in a hit-and-run crash in Brooklyn.

Nachman and his wife — who had been having pregnancy pain — were en route to meet her doctor at Long Island College Hospital in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, at around 12:30a.m. when their Toyota Camry livery cab was broadsided by a speeding gray 2010 BMW at Wilson Street and Kent Avenue, relatives and cops said.

Raizel, known as “Raizy,” was ejected from the car in the T-bone crash, which sent the cab spinning into the median.

She was thrown so far that EMTs initially didn’t know where she was. She was found under a parked tractor-trailer.

Nachman was pinned in the cab. He and the driver, Pedro Nunez Delacruz, had to be cut from the wreckage.

The BMW driver, who didn’t own the car, fled on foot and was still at large early this morning.

Last night, a woman who had co-signed the vehicle’s lease was charged with insurance fraud. Takia Walker, 29, of The Bronx, had allegedly acquired the car under false pretense, and let a third party who was not on the insurance drive it, sources said.

Police have the driver’s name, and were showing his photo to possible witnesses, sources said.

Raizel and Nachman Glauber, both 21, were killed in a hit-and-run crash in Brooklyn.Members of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community mourn yesterday over the coffins of Raizel and Nachman Glauber, whose son was delivered by C-section after both were killed in a crash. The baby, in serious but stable condition last night, will be named for his father, a relative said.

Yesterday afternoon, mourners lined Rodney Street to say farewell to the victims. Every stoop on the brownstone-lined street was packed, men on one side, women on the other.

Grand Satmar Rebbe Zalman Leib Teitelbaum sobbed as he addressed the mourners.

“What could we say? What is there to say about this? The tragedy speaks for itself,’’ he said.

Women shrieked. Men buried their faces in their hands.

“God is punishing me for my sins by taking away my daughter,” Raizy’s father, Yitzchak Silberstein, said in Yiddish at the funeral. “Nobody knows how this could happen.”

Silberstein also praised his late son-in-law, talking about how the young couple ate dinner with her parents every night.

“Every day, they spent time together,” he said, noting how “unbelievably good he cared for her and she cared for him.

“I don’t know what to say. My mind is not here. No one understands how this happened. I’m in shock.”

Raizy’s brother Nuchem Yoel Silberstein said, “We can all learn from [Nachman] how to treat a wife. She was the crown of the family.”

Moshe Meisels, a yeshiva friend of Nachman, told The Post a heartwarming story about how the young husband had recently collected money to help an orphaned friend pay for an upcoming wedding. “He was thinking about how he would feel if he didn’t have a father or a mother,” a shaken Meisels said.

It was unclear whether the cabdriver, Delacruz, who works for Go Car in Williamsburg, had come to a full halt at a stop sign before the crash. The BMW did not have a stop sign.

Nachman — a bright, promising rabbinical student whose own mother had just delivered a boy two weeks ago — died at Beth Israel Medical Center. Raizy died at Bellevue as her son was born.

Nachman’s parents were not at the Brooklyn funeral. They were expected to attend a service in Monsey, Rockland County, where they live, last night before the couple was buried in nearby Kiryas Joel.

Nachman came from a large family that runs a popular Hasidic clothing company.

Meanwhile, Delacruz, himself a father of three with a fourth on the way, was being treated for a bruised chest.

“I feel very sorry for that beautiful family,” he told WABC-TV.

His wife, Yesenia Perdomo, told The Post, “He doesn’t remember what happened. He passed out,”

8 Comments

  • Yc

    This has got to be one of the most heartbreaking stories ever! BDE no words, just no words!

    • awacs

      The car service had seat belts and Nachman A’H was wearing one – didn’t help). But, legally, passengers in taxis/car services/buses don’t need to wear seat belts (or use car seats either) – studies show that they don’t help much in the back seat, anyway.

  • DD

    #1 has to be right. I would add that when something is past words, then peula / mitzvos have to come into play. Some people are taking on a new mitzva, even if its a one time mitzva. I imagine when I look at the faces of this temimusdike couple, that they would want us to do a mitzva in their name…..

  • Andrea Schonberger

    I can’t believe this! What else can happen now? At least if the baby had survived the parents of the young couple would have something to cherish as a reminder of their dearly loved children. Now what?

  • awacs

    The car service had seat belts (and Nachman A’H was wearing one – didn’t help). But, legally, passengers in taxis/car services/buses don’t need to wear seat belts (or use car seats either) – studies show that they don’t help much in the back seat, anyway.