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| The 27-year-old victim, identified as Gerald Obah of Murray Hill, Manhattan, was pronounced dead at the scene |
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| The 27-year-old victim, identified as Gerald Obah of Murray Hill, Manhattan, was pronounced dead at the scene |
The brother of the man killed in a horrific wrong-way crash on the Belt Parkway Thursday blasted the drunken driver who plowed head-on into the car his sibling was riding as a passenger in.
“It’s very tough. I’m more angry about it because of the circumstances. This is truly awful,” Eugene Obah, 29, brother of 27-year-old Gerald Obah, told The Post by phone hours after the wreck.
“The driver was heading the wrong way,” Eugene said. “I hope whoever this guy is, is punished to the fullest extent of the law.”
Motorist Aleh Sheipak, 50, was driving a 2011 Volkawagen SUV eastbound in the westbound lane near the Verrazano Bridge at around 1:55 a.m. when he collided with a livery vehicle, police said.
The Uber-affiliated Honda Accord was driven by a 20-year-old man and carrying Gerald Obah in the backseat and a 29-year-old woman in the front passenger seat.
Obah, of Murray Hill, was pronounced dead at the scene.
His brother said that Obah may have been coming from JFK Airport after a flight from California and suspects that the second passenger in the car was a friend.
“My brother was truly a good guy. He was not afraid to speak his mind about anything and I will certainly miss that about him,” the devastated sibling said.
Eugene said that Obah previously lived in Ellicott City, Maryland and attended Syracuse University before moving to the Big Apple in 2012. Modal TriggerThe Uber-affiliated Honda Accord was severely damaged in the Brooklyn crash.Seth Gottfried
“Out of all my younger siblings, he was truly a New Yorker, in terms of enjoying the city,” Eugene said, adding, “He will truly be missed – not just by the family, but by everyone who knew him. The world is poorer without him.”
Obah was a dancer who was affiliated with DanceWorks New York City, his brother said.
“He was very much involved out in front and he really enjoyed it,” Eugene said.
Lisa Mara, the owner DanceWorks New York City, said in a statement: “All of us at DanceWorks New York City are heartbroken. Gerald was a pillar in our dance community. He was friends with everyone and all of us are feeling a huge void in our dance family today.”
“Anyone who attended one of our shows left knowing who Gerald Obah was…he was the type of dancer that left it all out there on the stage. We’re mourning the loss and want to send our love to his family,” Mara said.
According to Obah’s LinkedIn page, he worked as a manager for a media agency called Spark Foundry.
Sheipak — who had a blood-alcohol level of .21 percent, nearly three times the legal limit – was arrested and charged with manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, DWI and DWAI, cops said.
The three survivors of the crash, including Sheipak, were hospitalized in stable condition following the collision.
“This is very tough,” Eugene said. “This is not the type of thing you want to wake up to, but we’re hanging in there.”
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A drunken wrong-way driver slammed into a livery vehicle early Thursday on the Belt Parkway, killing one man and leaving three others hospitalized, police said.
The collision occurred at around 1:55 a.m. when a 50-year-old man driving a 2011 Volkswagen SUV eastbound in the westbound lane near the Verrazano Bridge plowed into a 2018 Honda Accord driven by a 20-year-old man and carrying a 29-year-old woman in the front passenger seat and a man, 27, in the backseat, cops said.
The wreck left both cars completely mangled and the black Uber-affiliated Honda with TLC plates, up over the lane median.
The 27-year-old victim, identified as Gerald Obah of Murray Hill, Manhattan, was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.
The wrong-way driver, identified as Aleh Sheipak, was initially taken to Maimonides Medical Center.
Sheipak, a Brooklyn resident, was later charged with manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, vehicular assault, DWI and DWAI, police said.
Emergency responders also rushed the driver of the Honda to Maimonides Medical Center, while the female passenger in the front seat was taken to NYU Langone Hospital.
The livery driver suffered a leg fracture, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
The three who survived the gruesome collision were in stable condition, police said.
“I was coming down off the bridge, saw the guy coming the wrong way. He hit the car, and it went 20 feet in the air, turned and landed hard on the rail there,” said a witness, Jack Aboutboul, of Sheepshead Bay, who then called 911.
Aboutboul said he and another motorist ran over to help. “We were trying to get the doors open. We tried to open the door and see if we could get anyone out,” he said. “The only door we could open was the back door, and once we got the door open we realized he was probably gone. He had blood all over his face, and he didn’t have a pulse. His feet were stuck underneath. We couldn’t get him out.”
Aboutboul added, “We saw through the airbags that there was a woman in the front seat, she was bleeding out and holding her neck.”
He said that Sheipak “looked like he was drunk.”
It was not immediately clear whether the livery driver was on the clock at the time of the crash.
An Uber spokeswoman said that the cabbie was not working for Uber at the time of the collision, but said a livery driver can be affiliated with an Uber base and do trips with any other app.