Photo by Ethan Sprague
There are some more details coming out about the truck that hit a woman in a wheelchair on Bleecker and 8th yesterday. The Daily News reports that the victim was 78-year-old off-Broadway actress and playwright Shami Chaikin, who was "riding her motorized wheelchair in a Manhattan bike lane" and was hit by a city garbage truck.
Locals told the NY Post that cars and trucks often use the bike line and endanger others by doing so; one telling them, "I don't feel safe in the bike lane. He had no business being there." A witness told NY1 that "She didn't cross the street she was just on this bicycle path. And apparently thought that the truck had stopped for a while and she probably thought she could drive around it but he must have pulled away without seeing her."
As of last night she was awaiting surgery and in critical condition with head injuries at St. Vincent's Hospital, and the driver has not been charged.
