5 young lives lost on Hutchinson River Parkway: Unspeakable loss and endless questions

Anthony, Malik, Zahnyiah, Shawnell, Andrew.

Seventeen, sixteen, twelve, eleven, eight.

Gone.

Hours after five young members of a Connecticut family died in a fiery crash on the Hutchinson River Parkway in Scarsdale early Sunday morning, details began to emerge, each triggering fresh questions.

With each of the sparest of details, the questions began.

Social media crackled with them: Where on the notorious Hutch did the crash occur? How could a 16-year-old be behind the wheel, at night, without an adult in the car? Was alcohol involved? Were they cut off? Without answers, the outrage grew.

George Latimer stood at a bank of microphones at his White Plains office on Monday and tried to piece together the beginnings of some answers.

But, as he did in late January — when a plane went down on a murky night near the airport — the Westchester County executive chronicled clearly what had occurred, but also took stock of the human toll. In January, two fathers did not return to their families. On Sunday, five children who were expected home did not arrive, would not arrive alive.

Latimer laid out the knowns: The driver, Malik Smith, was 16 and unlicensed. Speed didn't appear to be a factor. That area of the Hutch was not the site of frequent accidents. It's not clear if the driver was distracted or if he fell asleep as Saturday turned to Sunday.

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The answers will come

The answers would come, Latimer said. For the moment, thoughts should be on what was lost. Five lives. A family forever altered.

There was a glimmer of hope. A sixth member of the family, Abraham, survived. He’s 9.

On Tuesday, as the investigation continues, Latimer spoke about the swirl of emotions surrounding the deaths, from helplessness to the empathy for the parents who now face five funerals, and helping a sixth child cope with having survived.

Latimer thought of the unthinkable, of getting such a phone call about one of his grandchildren.

"You feel that on a human level," he said, "which is why at this moment in time, I don't want to ask 50,000 questions."

Recognizing the loss

There will be time for questions and the need for answers, Latimer said, but the human loss must be recognized, and acknowledged.

"If you can't grasp that, then you're a voyeur, trying to look in on somebody else's life and ask why did this happen or how could this happen?" he said.

There is a helplessness at work, he said, one that he tried to deal with by driving past the scene to check for guardrails that might have changed the outcome.

"You want to do something tangible. You could send money to the GoFundMe page to pay for the funerals, but you feel helpless. And that helplessness is not the way we as Americans think."

"You have to grasp that there are things that are greater than what you or I can do," Latimer said. "It's unacceptable, but we have to try to accept it. And then once you reach that point — and I don't think any of us are there yet because it's still a fresh horror — you try to parse through what what would prevent this from happening in the future."

The investigation will produce answers in the coming days.

Westchester has its share of highways that are "white-knuckle rides" for those first encountering them, Latimer said, including the Hutch, the Bronx River Parkway and the Saw Mill River Parkway. While improvements have made the roads safer, with some notorious exits closed, the thought of an unlicensed driver on the Hutch after midnight is not something he wants to think about.

"That road is unforgiving," he said.

And now the family must plan five funerals.

"It's incalculable, this kind of loss," he said. "I don't know, personally, how the family will deal with this as we go forward. It's unthinkable."

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Unspeakable loss after 5 die in Hutchinson River Parkway crash