A motorist who died when his car crashed into a Queens garage was a hard-working Uber driver who was probably reaching the end of his overnight shift, family members said Tuesday.
For 10 years, Mamadou Barry picked up passengers between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. so he could spend time with his wife and children during the day, his relatives said.
“In the daytime he had to take care of the kids, taking them to school, picking them up, helping them with their homework, all that stuff,” said the victim’s cousin, Ibrahima Diallo, 61. “So that’s why he worked nights.”
Barry, 63, was driving his SUV along 90th Ave. in Jamaica around 5:20 a.m. Tuesday morning when he lost control of his vehicle, a Toyota RAV4, which went racing into a detached garage in Queens, colliding with a parked car and causing the structure to collapse onto both vehicles, police said.
The SUV had hopped a curb at 143rd St., careened into a driveway at the intersection and kept going until it crashed into the garage and an unoccupied Toyota Prius, cops said.
The impact caused the garage to collapse onto both vehicles, trapping the RAV4 driver, police said.
First responders pulled Barry from the wreckage, and rushed him to Jamaica Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police believe Barry went into cardiac arrest during the incident but it was unclear if that’s what caused the crash.
His relatives said he had no medical issues they were aware of that would cause him to lose control of the car.
“To my knowledge, he didn’t tell me about having a medical issue,” the cousin said. “Generally, from appearances, if you see him, you’re not going to say he has some medical issues. Every day he does the same routine — he works.”
Barry immigrated to the Bronx from Conakry, Guinea, about 22 years ago, his family sad. He met his wife, Aminata, in the Bronx, and they had two children.
“He was a very, very nice dad,” the grieving widow said, shaking her head, as she looked through photos of him with their children.
“My dad was a strong, happy man,” their daughter, Kadiatou, 7, said. “I loved him. He was the best dad in the whole wide world.”
The victim’s uncle, Ibrahima Barry, said his nephew came to New York to escape the political dangers in Guinea.
“Politically, we are sequestered by the government,” the uncle said. “We are fighting, we are losing people. Most of us are in the jail. Some they kill them because they revolt. You revolt for the electricity. They kill you. You revolt because of the lack of water. They kill you. You see it’s a big sequestration. That’s why most of the people go out.”
Barry’s cousin said the hard-working Uber driver liked to exercise and read in his time off.
“That’s what he did,” the cousin said. “He went to the gym. He was in very good shape.”
He said the family is devastated.
“That is a big loss for us,” he said. “He was a caregiver. That’s very, very tough for us.”
