BULLS HEAD, Staten Island (WABC) --
Two teenage boys were killed in a single car crash on Staten Island Monday night.Police say the car was driving at a high rate of speed northbound on Richmond Avenue in the Bulls Head section.
They were near the intersection on Signs Road when the driver lost control and crashed into a parked pick-up truck, then into a wall at a construction site.
The teens were taken to Richmond University Hospital where they were pronounced dead.
They have been identified as 17-year-old Sebastian Serrano and 19-year-old Daniel Castellano.
These two morons will not do this again! To the rest of you, learn and live: SPEED KILLS!
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New York Daily News)
BY John Annese
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, November 7, 2017, 2:42 AM
A teenage driver and his young passenger died in a gruesome Staten Island wreck Monday night, after he crashed into a parked car and slammed into a construction site.
The driver, 19-year-old Daniel Castellano, was heading north on Richmond Ave. behind the wheel of a 2009 Ford Fusion at about 8 p.m., when he hit a parked car near Signs Road in Bulls Head, cops said.
He then crashed into a pole and through a wall at a construction site, cops said.
The impact left both the driver and his passenger, Sebastian Serrano, 17, mortally wounded.
Medics took both to Richmond University Medical Center, but they couldn’t be saved.
"Someone came into my restaurant and said, 'Hey, help! Call 911!'" said the owner of the nearby Oriental Plaza restaurant, who only gave his first name, John. "When I came out all the cops were already here.”
The wreck happened less than a mile away from a crash that left an on-duty NYPD detective with a fractured skull Sunday night.
Det. Lisa Bergen, 50, is in stable condition after a minivan struck her as she and her partner crossed Richmond Ave. near Akron St. She suffered skull fractures, three fractured ribs, a fractured pelvis and a fractured vertebrae, police sources said.
The 31-year-old driver does not face charges.
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Crash victim, 19, came back from Army 'ready to take on the world,' friend says.
Updated 3:35 PM; Posted 3:25 PM
By Kyle Lawson
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- It was about 1 a.m. on Tuesday when Giovanni Balsamo learned it was a childhood friend who was one of two men who died in a fatal crash on Richmond Avenue in Bulls Head.
"As soon as I found out it was Danny..." said Balsamo, fighting through tears during a telephone interview Tuesday with the Advance. "I still can't believe he's gone."
Daniel Castellano, 19, of Bulls Head, was behind the wheel of a 2009 Ford Fusion that made impact with parked car, telephone pole and ultimately a construction site late Monday night on the 1900 block of Richmond Avenue, according to a NYPD spokesman.
Both Castellano and his passenger, Sebastian Serrano, 17, of Arden Heights, were pronounced dead on arrival at Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Castellano, a graduate of Moore Catholic High School, had recently returned home from U.S. Army training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, according to his Facebook page. Unfortunately, this type of white trash are the ones who join the Army and the armed forces. Reckless, bullies, aggressive, killers, etc.
According to a fundraiser on GoFundMe.com, Castellano was an honors student at one point and made it through boot camp.
"No matter what obstacles he had to over come he was a great kid," the fundraiser says.
Balsamo, who last spoke with Castellano about a year ago, said he had been meaning to catch up with his old friend, who by all accounts had come back from the military, "...with a clear mind, ready to take on the world." Reckless drivers do not take over the world, buddy. Only disciplined, law-abiding people do!
But he never got the chance to see it for himself.
"I got caught up with work and everything else," he said. "After this, I'm definitely gonna try harder to make time for friends. You never know."
Balsamo called off work Tuesday and headed to the scene, where he taped a farewell letter to a telephone pole.
"I wanted to take time out of my day to show how much I appreciated him as a friend and a person."
A man who answered the door at Castellano's home declined to comment on Tuesday.
Balsamo said he met Castellano they were 11 or 12 years old, and at one point spent nearly every day together. He described his friend as a dedicated older brother.
"If Danny heard his sister was getting picked on, he always was the first one trying to find out where it came from," he said.
A source told the Advance that speed is believed to be a factor in the crash, which police say remains under investigation.
A female friend, around the same age as Danny, wrote the following on Instagram in the hours following his death:
"I will always love you for your carefree spirit and constant joking and trying to make people laugh... safe passage on your travels until your final journey, may we meet again." Of course this "carefree spirit" got him killed. The Army was not able to correct the "carefree spirit" of this speedster (who is also a killer of his friend, Sebastian Serrano).