A 37-year-old woman died early Sunday after falling from the back seat of a moving SUV on the westbound Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and being struck by another vehicle, according to police. The crash happened near Exit 28 at around 2:26 a.m., leaving the woman with severe body trauma. She was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS.
According to News12 Brooklyn, the woman was riding in the rear passenger seat of a Toyota Highlander driven by a 33-year-old man heading westbound toward Exit 28 when she opened a door and fell from the moving vehicle. A 29-year-old man driving a Hyundai Elantra westbound on the same stretch of expressway then struck her after she landed on the roadway.
Drivers Stayed Put, No Arrests Made
Police say the Toyota Highlander and the Hyundai Elantra did not make contact with each other during the incident. Both drivers remained at the scene afterward, and no other people were reported injured. As of the latest update, no arrests had been made and the investigation into the woman's death remained ongoing, per the outlet's report.
The woman's identity had not yet been released, and the circumstances that led her to open the door of the moving SUV have not been explained by investigators. The report offers no further detail on what prompted the fall.
Not the First Fatal Ejection on a Local Highway
Fatal crashes involving people ejected or falling from vehicles have surfaced elsewhere in the city's recent history, though nothing in the available reporting ties this case to a broader pattern. In a separate incident described by News12, a woman died in Brooklyn after falling out of a vehicle and being struck by another car. On the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, 23-year-old Arianna Arregui was ejected from the backseat of a car in a different crash; medics took her to Elmhurst Hospital, but she did not survive, according to NBC New York.
The BQE itself has seen other deadly crashes in recent memory. In one case reported by the Brooklyn Paper, a 22-year-old woman was accused of driving drunk at high speed on the expressway, crashing into a barrier and killing one of her passengers; she faced up to 15 years behind bars. That case, however, involved an arrest and different circumstances than Sunday's fatal fall.
Police have not said what led to the woman opening the door of the Highlander before she fell, and the case remains under investigation. No additional details about potential charges or findings have been released.
