Six-year-old girl in Staten Island car crash that killed 90-year-old man dies: mother

A Staten Island mom keeping a desperate vigil at her 6-year-old daughter’s hospital bedside was reeling after her death Sunday morning, 48 hours after the car crash that claimed the life of a 90-year-old man the little girl thought of as her grandfather.

“Today, Sunday, I go back home, and I don’t have my princess with me,” said 39-year-old Marlene Trinidad, who hasn’t left her child’s side since little Anheli Vasquez was rushed to the hospital.

“I feel really, really, really, really bad,” Trinidad said. “My heart is broken.”

Anheli was riding in the car, a Honda SUV, with 90-year-old Gerardo Avila and his 70-year-old wife, Perla, who was driving south on Forest Hill Road when they collided with an Audi Q5 making a left turn from Rockland Ave. onto Forest Hill in New Springville around 10 a.m. Friday, cops said.

The three were on their way to a chemotherapy appointment for Avila, who was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma, his son told the Daily News.

Avila died in the hospital shortly after the crash. He and Perla, who was injured but is expected to survive, were baby-sitting Anheli, as they often did, Trinidad said. Anheli considered the older couple her grandparents despite not being related.

“She does not have the same blood as him, but Anheli passed away thinking Gerardo … was her biological grandpa,” Trinidad said. “She called [Perla] her grandma.”

Trinidad said she rushed to Staten Island University North Hospital when she heard about the crash.

“It was really bad. When I arrived to the hospital they told me [Anheli’s] neck was hurt and her brain was bad,” Trinidad said in broken English.

“Her situation was catastrophic. The first time when I arrived I was thinking it was a coma … but it was catastrophic. It was more than a coma,” Trinidad recounted.

Little Anheli never awoke, but Trinidad said she stayed by her side.

“I arrived (at the hospital) when they called me, and I just left today. I never be out. All the time close to her,” she said.

Anheli was born in Staten Island, was in the first grade and “was a really loving little girl,” her mom said. “At school, everybody loves her. At my job, everybody loves her.”

“She was sweet and friendly. She was bilingual. She can speak English and Spanish,” Trinidad added.

Now, on top of mourning her daughter, Trinidad is shouldering the weight of paying for her funeral.

“I’m from Dominican Republic. I don’t have any idea about how expensive was … the funeral here,” she said.

The family has started a GoFundMe to help with the costs.

Gerardo Avila lived on the same block in Staten Island for more than 20 years, according to his neighbors.

“He’s such a good man. Practical man. He’s nice to everybody,” said neighbor Nancy Zapata, 60. “He likes to work all the time washing the car. A very simple man,” she added.

Avila used to give Zapata’s niece driving lessons, she said. “I’m shocked. I pray for them.”

Avila’s son, Elias Avila, learned about the crash when his father’s doctor called and told him Avila had not shown up for his chemotherapy appointment, the son wrote in an email.

Avila’s recent cancer diagnosis was “devastating” for him, Elias Avila said. Despite being a nonagenarian, Avila “was always very active, independent, and alert,” his son said.

Avila immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in the 1980s. He worked at Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center & Home before retiring and was a long-time member of Iglesia De Dios Pentecostal El Amparo Divino.

“He was my inspiration, my guide, my protector, and my example,” Elias Avila said, adding his father was known for his generosity, and that he and Perla were married for more than 50 years and raised four children.

Perla Avila was admitted to the ICU with critical injuries after the accident. “She is currently recovering and continues to heal both physically and emotionally. This has been an incredibly difficult time for her and for our entire family,” Elias Avila said.

The Avila family has also started a GoFundMe to help pay for the funeral and medical bills for Perla.

The 50-year-old man driving the Audi suffered minor injuries and was taken to the same hospital as Anheli and Avila.

No arrests have been made as police continue to investigate the crash.

The intersection where the collision occurred was renamed “Brianna Gabrielle Gioia Corner” in 2008 to honor a 20-year-old woman who died in a crash at the corner.

The car in which Gioia road was driven by a high school student without a license who veered into oncoming traffic and crashed after the right tire got caught in a gully.