The ambulance driver who fatally hit a Manhattan pedestrian last year has been arrested on charges that he failed to yield to the woman, who was crossing the street as he was making a turn, police said.
Driver Juan Santana, 28, remained on the scene after the Nov. 12 incident, and even transported the victim, Miriam Reinharth, 69, to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, where she later died from injuries that included a broken left leg and pelvis fractures that resulted in significant blood loss, officials said.
Santana, of the Bronx, was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care.
The NYPD Highway District’s Collision Investigation Squad determined that the 2014 Ford ambulance was traveling northbound on Amsterdam Ave. when it turned left onto W. 96th St. where Reinharth was crossing.
Reinharth, who lived just blocks away on W. 93rd St., was struck along a stretch that includes a truck route and is a double-wide east-west artery.
Reinharth organized community forums and literary events for the New York Jewish Week newspaper from 2007 to 2012, and was a staff member and volunteer for the Community Service Society of New York, where she helped New Yorkers navigate issues around insurance and medical debt.
In a Facebook post announcing her death last year, Reinharth’s husband, Steven Greenhouse, called the incident “sudden and shocking.”
“The police officer said the accident was not Miriam’s fault at all,” Greenhouse, a former New York Times labor and workplace reporter, wrote.
“The doctors there at first told me that Miriam had a broken leg [with several fractures], and I thought Miriam, with her strong will and fighting spirit, would be as good as new in a few months. She was conscious and gave me the warmest smile as she was being wheeled out of the ER for a CT scan and surgery.”
Hours later, she took a turn for the worst after receiving several blood transfusions.
The day before the tragedy, Reinharth had enjoyed spending time with family and thinking about travel plans.
“On Monday, Miriam spent the most splendid, happy day with our grandson Eli at Prospect Park Zoo,” Greenhouse wrote. “That night she and I agreed to take a week-long vacation in San Miguel de Allende in January, and Miriam was saying we should spend a month soon in her beloved France, where her mother was born. Miriam was so full of life and so looking forward to many more happy years.”
