Couple Killed On The Way To Hospital To Deliver Baby In Williamsburg Brooklyn Baby Survives

NEW YORK The young couple, married just a year, were looking forward to welcoming their first child into their tight-knit community of Orthodox Jews. They were newlyweds barely into their 20s, looking forward to the joy of having their first child, when the unthinkable happened As their livery cab sped to a doctor through Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just after midnight Sunday, it was struck broadside by a gray BMW sedan, whose driver and passenger then abandoned their own wrecked car and vanished into the night. The expectant parents, Raizy and Nathan Glauber, both 21, were killed. But their baby boy survived, delivered prematurely in what friends and family hailed as a precious gift. "They were always glowing," one family member, Sarah Gluck, said of the couple on Sunday. "Everybody wants the baby. It's going to have a lot of love." In the aftermath of the horrifying accident, friends rushed to the hospital to visit the newborn tenaciously clinging to life, then on to the synagogue for the funeral of his parents. The boy's birthday would fall on the anniversary of his parents' death; their burial would occur well before his bris, the circumcision ritual that Jews have honored for thousands of years, and his naming. Even for a community accustomed to burying its dead quickly, it was a shattering avalanche of events. The crash happened at Kent Avenue and Wilson Street. The police said the livery cab, a black 2008 Toyota Camry, was traveling west on Wilson Street when it was struck on the driver's side by the 2010 BMW, which had been going north on Kent. It was not clear if one or both of the drivers was at fault, the police said; the crash was still under investigation. The driver of the BMW is expected to face an eventual charge of fleeing the scene of the accident. Mr. Glauber was taken to Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan and was pronounced dead on arrival at 12:41 a.m., a spokesman for the hospital said. His wife was taken a few blocks farther to Bellevue Hospital Center, a major trauma center skilled at tackling the most challenging emergencies, where the baby was delivered, according to the police. The police said Ms. Glauber also had been pronounced dead on arrival. Bellevue officials would not provide further information. A family member said the baby was intubated and was in serious condition. The livery driver, Pedro Nuñez Delacruz, 32, was taken to Bellevue and released. "Show your face," his wife, Yesenia Perdomo, who is pregnant with their fourth child, said Sunday, addressing the BMW driver, who, with the passenger, was still being sought by the police. Mr. Delacruz's application to use the Toyota as a livery cab was pending, and the car should not have been sent to pick up passengers, according to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. He declined to comment after speaking to the police.

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NEW YORK The young couple, married just a year, were looking forward to welcoming their first child into their tight-knit community of Orthodox Jews.

They were newlyweds barely into their 20s, looking forward to the joy of having their first child, when the unthinkable happened

As their livery cab sped to a doctor through Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just after midnight Sunday, it was struck broadside by a gray BMW sedan, whose driver and passenger then abandoned their own wrecked car and vanished into the night.

The expectant parents, Raizy and Nathan Glauber, both 21, were killed. But their baby boy survived, delivered prematurely in what friends and family hailed as a precious gift.

"They were always glowing," one family member, Sarah Gluck, said of the couple on Sunday. "Everybody wants the baby. It's going to have a lot of love."

In the aftermath of the horrifying accident, friends rushed to the hospital to visit the newborn tenaciously clinging to life, then on to the synagogue for the funeral of his parents. The boy's birthday would fall on the anniversary of his parents' death; their burial would occur well before his bris, the circumcision ritual that Jews have honored for thousands of years, and his naming.

Even for a community accustomed to burying its dead quickly, it was a shattering avalanche of events.

The crash happened at Kent Avenue and Wilson Street. The police said the livery cab, a black 2008 Toyota Camry, was traveling west on Wilson Street when it was struck on the driver's side by the 2010 BMW, which had been going north on Kent.

It was not clear if one or both of the drivers was at fault, the police said; the crash was still under investigation. The driver of the BMW is expected to face an eventual charge of fleeing the scene of the accident.

Mr. Glauber was taken to Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan and was pronounced dead on arrival at 12:41 a.m., a spokesman for the hospital said.

His wife was taken a few blocks farther to Bellevue Hospital Center, a major trauma center skilled at tackling the most challenging emergencies, where the baby was delivered, according to the police. The police said Ms. Glauber also had been pronounced dead on arrival. Bellevue officials would not provide further information. A family member said the baby was intubated and was in serious condition.

The livery driver, Pedro Nuñez Delacruz, 32, was taken to Bellevue and released. "Show your face," his wife, Yesenia Perdomo, who is pregnant with their fourth child, said Sunday, addressing the BMW driver, who, with the passenger, was still being sought by the police.

Mr. Delacruz's application to use the Toyota as a livery cab was pending, and the car should not have been sent to pick up passengers, according to the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission. He declined to comment after speaking to the police.