‘He took my life away,’ mom of July 4 crash victim on Lower East Side says of accused drunk driver
The grieving mother of one of three people killed in a horrifying Fourth of July crash in a Lower East Side park said the accused drunken driver who slammed into a crowd celebrating the holiday — including her daughter — took everything from her.
“I want that guy to be in jail,” Zoila Hernandez said of 44-year-old driver Daniel Hyden. “He took my life away from me.”
Hyden was behind the wheel of a Ford F-150 pickup truck around 8:55 p.m. when he blew a stop sign at the corner of Water St. and Jackson St., mounted the curb and took out a fence at Corlears Hook Park, police said.
Inside the park, about 200 people barbecued and relaxed minutes before Independence Day fireworks were set to go off over the Manhattan skyline.
Witnesses told the Daily News that after the crash, Hyden drove into a crowd of about 30 people, pinning several victims.
The impact killed Lucille Pinkney, 59, her son Hernan Pinkney, 38, and Hernandez’s daughter Ana Morel, 43.
“This is too much for me,” Hernandez said on Sunday, nearly 72 hours after cops allege Hyden, a substance abuse counselor and author, drunkenly took her daughter’s life.
Eight others, including an 11-year-old boy, were injured in the crash, police said.
Morel lived in East Harlem and was disabled, according to her mother.
“My daughter was the best,” Hernandez said of her daughter Ana. “I have three daughters, [and] she was like an angel.”
Over 100 people gathered at the park early Sunday evening, where mourners lit candles and grappled with the senseless deaths.
“She was a great woman, a great friend,” said a man who grew up with Morel, who only identified himself as Charles. “This should have never happened.”
After the crash, a group of traumatized witnesses held Hyden in the park until police arrived. His breath smelled of booze, police said.
He was charged with vehicular homicide, manslaughter, aggravated vehicular assault, and driving while intoxicated, among other charges. He was held without bail during a brief arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court Saturday.
“He took someone special from us, and he owes us everything,” Morel’s friend Charles said of Hyden. “I want him to know that.”
In a post made to X a day after the deadly mayhem, Mayor Adams wrote he was sending “prayers to all the families impacted.”
“Last night’s deadly incident at a park in the Lower East Side breaks my heart,” Adams said. “Families were enjoying their day like so many others only for it to end in a tragic incident caused by a careless driver under the influence.”
Hyden previously worked at Recoveries R Us on the Upper East Side and authored “The Sober Addict: A Guide on How to Be Functional With the Dysfunctional Disease of Addiction.”
Less than an hour before the fatal crash, the former sober coach was thrown off a party boat for being drunk and disorderly, the Daily News previously reported.
Hyden was escorted off Pier 36 on the Lower East Side after crew aboard the Boss Lady NYC determined he was too drunk to sail, police sources and a ship employee confirmed.
But even after being booted from the booze cruise, which was setting sail to catch the Macy’s Fourth of July fireworks show, Hyden refused to leave the pier between the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges, sources said.
Staff called the police, who led the man off the pier and let him go without any criminal charges.
Hyden is being held at a Rikers Island jail pending his next court appearance.
