North Bellmore community rallies around family of Jayden Flores, teen boy killed in e-bike crash
Tania Salazar's son, 14-year-old Jayden Flores, told her Thursday morning that his ankle was hurting him.
“I have to get new shoes for you later today, okay?” she recalled telling him before he left the family’s North Bellmore home.
Not long after, Salazar said she received a call from Flores' school, Wellington C. Mepham High. “They just told me that something happened, he was riding his bike and then he was taken to the hospital,” she recalled in an interview Friday. When she arrived at the scene, she said, she saw police cars, then her son’s e-bike.
Flores was traveling westbound on Alice Avenue at 7:05 a.m. Thursday when he was struck by a 2025 Chevrolet SUV going south on Bellmore Avenue, according to the Nassau County Police Department. The name of the driver was not released.
Flores “suffered severe body trauma" in the crash and died, police said.
The speed limit is 40 miles per hour on that stretch of road.
Salazar said she spoke with a woman who had given her son CPR until the ambulance came. The woman hugged her, Salazar recalled, calling the woman a blessing for trying to help her son.
“I didn’t know what to think, if he was alone, how long he was there,” she said. But, she said, “Everybody helped him.”
Salazar on Friday expressed gratitude to the community, which has rallied around the family.
An online fundraiser had raised more than $28,000 by Friday evening. The organizer, Mierto Mannino, is a Bellmore resident who said her 14-year-old daughter attended Grand Avenue Middle School with Flores. Her daughter said the boy was quiet and “so sweet,” she said.
“It just broke my heart,” Mannino said. “It's just mind-blowing that this little innocent young boy, that he lost his life so tragically.”
Mannino, 51, said she had called the high school to ask if there was anything she could do to help, and a school official told her others were asking the same question.
The fundraiser “could never bring him back, but if we could help him, you know, help his family, that's the least we could do as a community,” she said. “When something tragic happens, you need support, you need family, you need your community. You need everybody.”
Salazar said Friday the family had not yet made funeral arrangements. The mother, who works as a nail tech, said her son used to offer to massage her legs. He aspired to be a successful artist and wanted his friends to remain in his life for many years, she said.
“He was such a nice boy,” Salazar said, her voice breaking.
“Always, always, you know, if someone needs something…he was willing to help,” she said. “He was just happy if the other person was happy. He helped so much, his brother, his sister, me.”
Newsday's Virginia Huie contributed to this report.
More coverage: Every 7 minutes on average, a traffic crash causing death, injury or significant property damage happens on Long Island. A Newsday investigation found that traffic crashes killed more than 2,100 people between 2014 and 2023 and seriously injured more than 16,000 people. To search for fatal crashes in your area, click here.
Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.
