NYC tow truck operator killed in crash on LIE in Queens; allegedly drunk driver faces vehicular homicide charge
A Queens tow truck operator remembered as a “very beautiful person” was struck and killed on the Long Island Expressway early Saturday in a wild crash involving two moving vehicles and a stalled car he was trying to hitch to the back of his rig, police said.
The allegedly drunk driver of a Dodge Durango that caused the splintering three-car crash was arrested on vehicular manslaughter charges, police said.
Carlos Santiago, a dad of three from Howard Beach who worked for Knights Towing, rolled up to help a 27-year-old man with his disabled Nissan sedan on the Manhattan-bound side of the Long Island Expressway near exit 19 in Elmhurst about 3:30 a.m., cops said.
The Nissan was on the right shoulder, cops said. As Santiago, 47, tried to link his truck to the disabled Nissan, motorist Denzel Porter lost control of his Dodge Durango in the LIE’s right lane, and careened into a Volkswagen SUV in the center lane, cops said.
The collision sent the Volkswagen into Santiago, who was standing next to his tow truck, cops said.
The Durango spun out of control and moved from the right lane to the right shoulder, where it struck the stalled Nissan. The Nissan in turn slammed into its owner, who was also outside his vehicle.
EMS arrived and rushed both injured men to Elmhurst Hospital, where Santiago died. The Nissan owner suffered severe injuries to his legs in the crash but is expected to survive.
Porter, 28, and two others in his Dodge Durango suffered minor injuries, as did the driver of the Volkswagen. All were taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens.
Police said they later learned Porter had been drinking before he got behind the wheel. Cops arrested him for vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, vehicular assault and driving while ability impaired.
”He was a big old teddy bear. He wanted everyone to succeed,” Santiago’s daughter, Destiny said of her father, while awaiting Porter’s arraignment on Saturday night in Queens criminal court. “He would let himself fall, so everyone else could rise up.”
Santiago’s son, also named Carlos, said his father was a handyman and enjoyed fixing things.
“He’ll help you before you ask him to,” he said. “He was a good man.”
On Saturday evening, dozens of mourners gathered at Knights Towing in Ocean Hill. Outside the building a makeshift memorial grew, with a floral wreath framing his portrait and over a dozen candles lit below.
“He was family. It didn’t come better,” said Hector Diaz, the third-generation owner of the towing company that employed Santiago. “He helped everyone.”
“As big as he was, his heart was even bigger. He was always helping people,” fellow tow truck driver Joseph Robles said. “He was helping people when he got hit.”
”He was a very beautiful person,” said Wilma Sonnenberg, 56, whose daughter once dated Santiago.
“He was the best friend, the best father, the best man to everyone. That’s why people are grieving,” Sonnenberg said. “He was absolutely beloved by the police department who he helped at any given time in Brooklyn.”
She added that Santiago leaves behind three children, his parents in Puerto Rico, a brother and his girlfriend.
“The tow truck community will be out to support him, and us. ... He was a real man,” Sonnenberg said.
At Porter’s arraignment in Queens criminal court on Saturday night, Judge Edwin Novillo set his bail at $100,000 cash, $300,000 bond and $300,000 partially secured surety bond.
