A speeding driver with a suspended license caused a chain-reaction crash that killed a “darling” and ambitious 14-year-old boy around the corner from his Brooklyn home over the weekend, cops said.
Teen Christian Antoine was crossing the street at the intersection of East 81st Street and Glenwood Road in Canarsie around 6:15 p.m. Saturday when reckless Mercedes driver Rayan K. Salmon, 45, allegedly crashed into him, police said.
Salmon first struck the front left fender of another vehicle – which caused his ride to spin clockwise and hit the teen pedestrian, cops said.
The boy suffered trauma to his body and was taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was initially listed in critical condition, but later succumbed to his injuries.
Antoine was heading home from his dad’s house when he was fatally struck, his distraught older sister, Eudanya Guichard, told WCBS.
“He was the sweetest little boy you have ever seen,” Guichard told the network through tears. “He had ambitions.”
Antoine loved to play soccer and to cook, she recalled.
“He made me banana bread sometimes,” Guichard said. “He would forget, put peanuts knowing I was allergic, and he would make another just to comfort me.”
Guichard organized a GoFundMe page on behalf of her grieving family.
“Christian Antoine, why did you leave us so soon, my precious little babe?” she wrote on the fundraising page.
“The darling of the family, my beloved 14-year-old little brother, is not just my best friend, but also my sweet little angel.”
The eighth grader was thinking about working in the medical field so he could care for his family, WABC reported.
“If he [the driver] was more careful — just go at normal speed, my little brother would still be alive,” Guichard told the network.
“He was two minutes from home,” she said about her brother.
Salmon, who complained of pain, was hospitalized in stable condition and later charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, authorities said.
The driver of the other car, struck by Salmon’s Mercedes, also complained of pain and was hospitalized in stable condition, cops said.
In an unrelated deadly crash nearly 12 hours later, two Queens teens were killed in a Long Island wreck, according to New York State Police.
Jevon Lyken, 19, of South Richmond Hill, and Debarpita Dey, 18, of Corona, were driving on the westbound Southern State Parkway, approaching Exit 35 in Babylon, when their 2015 Infiniti Q50 rear-ended a 2015 Jeep Compass around 5:40 a.m. Sunday, authorities said.
The impact caused the Infiniti to veer off onto the right shoulder of the parkway, where it struck a tree, killing both Lyken and Dey – the only two people inside, police said.
The vehicle came to a rest on its side, crushed against the tree, according to WNBC video.
Meanwhile, the Jeep spun out and hit the center concrete barrier, before coming to a rest in the left lane, cops said.
That driver was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
