12 Injured as SUV's Crash into Jerome Avenue Shoe Store

 

By David Greene

A dozen people were injured when two out-of-control SUV's jumped a busy
sidewalk and plunged into a Norwood shoe store.

Rescue crews were dispatched to the Payless ShoeSource, located at 3457 Jerome Avenue,
at just after 7 p.m., on Friday, August 24.

One young man with fresh blood on his pants leg, recalled, “There was a worker
who was pinned under one of the vehicles and a bunch of us went in there and we got her out."

A second witness claimed one driver was making a broken U-turn when the driver of
a Ford Expedition crashed into it at a high rate of speed. One witness reported
that the driver of the Expedition claimed he was suffering from a stroke.

However, police say the second vehicle was parked, when the driver swerved, hitting the
parked car and forcing both SUV's to be catapulted into the store. Most of the
injuries were described as minor and all are expected to survive.

Police say the driver and three passengers were injured in the Expedition and one
victim was injured in the parked car. The seven additional victims were either
walking along Jerome Avenue at the time of impact or inside the shoe store.

Employees at Payless were busy cleaning up debris the following day. Workers at the store
were still not answering the phone the following Monday.

While no one was killed in the crash, a quarter-mile stretch of Jerome
Avenue from Mosholu Parkway to E. Gun Hill Road is quickly becoming the
most deadly road in the city.

On March 28, Justin Bravo, 28, a teacher at MS 244 in Kingsbridge was killed when
he lost control of his motorcycle and slammed into the wall of an overpass at
Mosholu Parkway at Jerome Avenue.

On February 29, Norwood cab driver Kwame Awtwi, 51, suffered a heart attack and
crashed into a pole at the corner of E. Gun Hill Road and Jerome. Awtwi
died a short time later at Montefiore Hospital.

On February 19, two men were seriously injured when their Chevy Impala struck a subway pillar on Jerome Avenue at Van Cortland Avenue. The two men in this crash were critically injured but are said to be recovering.

Detectives continue to hunt for the hit-and-run driver who mowed-down 23-year old Josbel Rivera, 23, who was killed on December 26, as he crossed Mosholu Parkway at Paul Avenue. Days later the car was set ablaze in Kingsbridge.