A Perth mother has recalled the moment she and her son were almost crushed to death by a taxi in a ‘horrific’ crash in the heart of New York City on Christmas Day.
Rebecca Stewart, 41, and her son Tyler, nine, were heading out to dinner when they became pinned under a taxi outside Macy’s department store in Midtown Manhattan around 4pm local time on Wednesday.
The driver of the taxi lost control of the vehicle during a suspected medical episode which caused it to mount the curb and strike the pair and five others.
Bystanders rushed in to help push the taxi off them after Ms Stewart’s husband screamed out for help.
Ms Stewart suffered head and leg injuries while her son sustained a serious laceration to his right thigh and both were rushed to the Weill Cornell Medical Centre.
Police confirmed the others injured were the 58-year-old driver and three females aged 19, 37, and 49, who all suffered non-life threatening injuries.
Witnesses say the boy’s leg was stuck underneath the taxi’s still-turning wheel and Ms Stewart said her head would have been crushed had the taxi not come to a stop after slamming into a light post.
Rebecca Stewart, 41, and her son Tyler, nine, were pinned under a taxi outside Macy’s department store in Midtown Manhattan around 4pm local time on Wednesday
Bystanders rushed to help free the pair by manually pushing the taxi off them after Ms Stewart’s husband began screaming for help
Ms Stewart said all she could do was hold her son’s hand while passers-by tried shifting the taxi off them.
‘I just felt this massive impact behind me and then the next thing I knew I was facedown on the pavement,’ Ms Stewart told 7News.
‘I was holding my sons hand, I could just hear him screaming.
‘I could hear my husband screaming, just asking everyone to get the car off us. It was pretty horrific.’
Ms Stewart has since been discharged from hospital but Tyler is still being treated for his serious leg injuries.
Tyler suffered severe burns as well as a degloving injury from where the tyre had been left spinning on top of his leg.
A degloving injury is a traumatic injury that occurs when skin and tissue are torn away from underlying bone, muscle, or connective tissue.
Surgical staff have already operated on Tyler twice and he is expected to need further operations including a skin graft.
Ms Stewart suffered head and leg injuries and Tyler sustained a serious degloving injury to his leg where the taxi’s wheel had landed
Video of the incident filmed by others nearby captured around a dozen good Samaritans shifting the car off the pair after turning off its engine.
Ryan Tucker, 45, whose wife was struck by the cab, told local newspaper amNewYork that the wheels on the cab were still spinning when it came to a stop.
‘That’s when we kind of ripped the fender off, got the car pushed back, and there was a little boy,’ Mr Tucker said.
‘I grabbed him and sat just over in the corner. His dad came running over eventually, and then I kind of sat with him and talked to him for three or four minutes just to make sure he was okay.’
A spokesman from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told Daily Mail Australia officials are providing assistance to the mother and her son.
‘The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is providing consular assistance to two Australians in the United States of America,’ the spokesman said.
‘Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment.’
Pictures from the scene showed the significant damage to the front of the cab.
An NYPD spokesperson would not elaborate on the type of medical episode the 58-year-old taxi driver may have experienced but said no criminality was suspected.
The man has been taken to hospital in stable condition for further evaluation.
A probe into the incident is ongoing.
