10-Year-Old Orthodox Girl Killed, Pregnant Mom Hurt Crossing Brooklyn Street
A 10-year-old Brooklyn girl was killed and her mother, nine months pregnant, was injured when they were hit by a minivan while crossing the street in the Borough Park neighborhood.
The haredi Orthodox woman, Sarah Friedman, was taken to the hospital, where she delivered a healthy baby girl — her fifth child — on Tuesday night. She reportedly was in an induced coma and did not know as of Wednesday afternoon that her daughter Blima had died. The funeral was held Wednesday.
Friedman and Blima were pinned under the van. The mother reportedly called continually to her daughter and to passers-by to see how Blima was doing, according to local news reports.
The vehicle was driven by Bilal Ghumman, 22, an employee of a nearby valet service who had taken the car without the owner’s consent. A Breathalyzer test administered at the scene showed no alcohol in his system, police said.
Ghumman was charged with the unauthorized use of a vehicle without the owner’s consent and given a violation on an active warrant for a marijuana offense, the police said, according to newspaper reports.
It is the second tragedy to affect the family in recent years. During Hanukkah 2009, a fire broke out in the family’s home, severely burning a younger daughter who nearly died. Blima escaped the blaze.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
