Lyn Christopher was returning home from her local Brooklyn park, relishing the final days of her 8-year-old grandson’s visit from Atlanta, when an out-of-control car thief fleeing cops slammed into both of them, killing her and leaving the boy on life support.
“She should never have died like that,” the victim’s devastated son, Marvin Christopher, 49, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview Sunday. “No one deserves that . . . She was just walking around with my nephew. She always walks around the block — you know, do her 10,000 steps a day. It’s summertime so it was still bright outside.”
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The doting 67-year-old grandmother was crossing Macon St. at Ralph Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant, coming home from nearby Saratoga Park, about 7:10 p.m. Saturday when a speeding Honda HR-V plowed into her and her grandson.
Her grandson, Jacob Butler, and his 18-year-old sister had moved with their mother out of their grandmother’s home to Atlanta last September but they were back in the borough to stay with Christopher a few weeks and enjoy summer in New York.
Jacob’s sister was walking a few steps ahead when her brother and grandmother were struck.
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Alerted to the crash by his sister, Marvin ran over to the scene and found his mother’s body on the ground under a sheet. Jacob had already been taken to the hospital.
“I saw the body covered and I just lost it — I lost it,” he said. “She was just laying there covered and I’m like, ‘Why is she still there?’ They’re like, ‘We need to keep her there because they’re doing an investigation so they had to take pictures.’ It was horrible.”
When he woke up Sunday morning, Marvin went back to the crash scene, finding his mother’s blood still staining the asphalt.
“One of the ladies said she was gonna go clean it,” he said. “She didn’t need to be run over like an animal in the street.”
Jacob hit his head when the HR-V knocked him to the ground. He suffered a massive brain injury and underwent multiple emergency surgeries after medics rushed him to Maimonides Medical Center.
“His eyes is fluttering, which is a good sign, which means he has brain activity,” Marvin said. ““He’s got a broken leg, his spleen is busted, his ribs are busted. He looks really bad. (Surgeons) took part of his scalp (to relieve pressure on the brain). He’s all black-and-blue. He’s got a scar on his face.”
The boy remains in critical condition, sedated and on a ventilator.
“He’s fighting for his life right now,” NYPD Assistant Chief Judith Harrison of Patrol Borough Brooklyn North said Saturday night. “He could really use your prayers.”
Jacob, the son of an FDNY firefighter, is a “creative genius”, his uncle boasted.
“He could still be once he pulls through,” he said. “(He’s into) computers and karate. He…
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