Cops: 5 LIers killed in upstate parkway crash

A woman, her daughter, and three young cousins from Long Island were among eight people killed Sunday when a minivan traveling the wrong way on a Westchester parkway crashed head-on into a sport utility vehicle, rolled down an embankment and burst into flames.

The woman, 36, and five children - part of a family from Floral Park and West Babylon returning home from camping in Sullivan County - were in a Ford Windstar minivan at about 1:30 p.m. when the woman mistakenly tried to enter the Taconic State Parkway via the Pleasantville exit ramp for northbound traffic in Briarcliff, about 15 miles north of New York City, State Police said.

The minivan went south into the northbound lanes and almost immediately veered across three lanes of traffic before crashing head-on into a Chevy Tracker carrying three men from Yonkers, State Police said. The Tracker then struck a third vehicle, a Chevy Trailblazer, said State Police Investigator James Boyle.

The woman and all five children were ejected from the van onto the median, said Hawthorne fire department chief Joseph La Grippo.

"It's horrifying to pull up and see something like that," La Grippo said. "I was at the Trade Center. This was worse."

Firefighters performed CPR on the woman and children, but were able to resuscitate only one: the driver's son, a 5-year-old boy with severe head trauma and other injuries, La Grippo said. Boyle said the boy, who underwent surgery last night, was in stable condition.

The woman's 2-year-old daughter also died, as did her nieces - girls ages 5, 7 and 9., police said.

Boyle said police would reconstruct the accident, a process that will take months. He said witnesses estimated the minivan's speed at 45 mph before the crash.

"We don't really know why she was driving the wrong way," Boyle said, citing only "a possible medical condition."

Boyle said the names of the victims would be released Monday at 11 a.m.

The three in the first SUV - a 73-year-old man, his 49-year-old son and an 81-year-old family friend - were dead when firefighters arrived, La Grippo said. Firefighters used the Jaws of Life to pull their bodies from the crumpled vehicle.

A man and a woman from the third vehicle were hospitalized; they did not appear to be critically injured, La Grippo said.

The minivan's front end was obliterated, and its shell was scorched and bent.

La Grippo said he saw no skid marks - evidence of braking - on the pavement.

"I'm just real proud of my people," La Grippo said, adding that two other fire departments assisted. "We lost lives, but we saved one."

As for the victims, he said, "Nothing could have been done."

With AP

Photos from the Westchester crash