Astoria, Queens,<\/a>\u00a0also killed the car\u2019s driver \u2014 and\u00a0was so horrific that it severed one of the victims\u2019 feet.<\/p>\nThe grisly scene near the intersection of 42nd Street and 19th Avenue quickly drew distraught family members\u00a0of the slain pedestrians, who identified by kin as a marathon runner and a father of eight with 14 grandkids.<\/p>\n
An 84-year-old driver struck a food truck at 42nd Street and 19th Avenue in Astoria on Tuesday morning, killing himself and two customers, cops said. James Keivom<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should have been me. It shouldn\u2019t have been my dad,\u201d said the son of Joaquin Venancio, who was one of the victims of the crash. James Keivom<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy wasn\u2019t I here this morning?\u201d\u00a0cried the grief-stricken son of one of the victims, who\u00a0rushed past the NYPD\u2019s yellow tape and held his head in his hands\u00a0as his uncle and family members pulled him away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt should have been me. It should have been me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have been my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Family members at the crash scene identified the victims as avid marathon runner Joaquin Venancio, 41, and Santiago Baires, 70, a father of eight with 14 grandchildren \u2013 with two more on the way.<\/p>\n
The devastating crash unfolded when the senior motorist whizzed his light-colored 2010 Toyota Corolla north on 42nd Street through the intersection with 19th Avenue, startling surveillance footage shows.<\/p>\n
The car careened straight into a food truck as two men ordered from it, police said and video shows.<\/p>\n
After the initial impact, the out-of-control\u00a0driver\u2019s car\u00a0also spun around and collided with a Volvo sedan driven by a 42-year-old man, cops said. The Volvo driver was unhurt.<\/p>\n
An undated picture of Joaquin Venancio, who was one of the two people killed in the crash in Astoria, Queens on Tuesday. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden I hear loud screeching from tires and like, a really loud engine roar sounded like it was, like, right on top of me,\u201d shaken food-truck worker Giancarlo Caruso told The Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone screamed really loudly, and I just had stepped back, like right up to the sidewalk,\u201d he said, adding he was saved \u201cby a millimeter or a centimeter\u201d as he stood next to one of the fatal victims and \u201cfelt the wind hit my leg.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was parked right off the sidewalk, and as soon as I heard that scream and the screeching, I stepped back, and a vehicle going about 60 miles an hour mauled two of the customers that were with me,\u201d Caruso said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were just laid out and lifeless,\u201d he said of the tragic victims. \u201cIt happened so fast. It just, it was almost like God removed me from the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n
The grisly crash wiped out several vehicles. Peter Gerber<\/p>\n
Joaquin\u00a0Venancio, 41, was identified by his brother Abel Venacio as one as one of the victims.<\/p>\n
Their family owns Astoria Discount Tires, directly across from the food truck.<\/p>\n
Abel Venancio remembered his brother as the \u201chappiest person ever,\u201d a marathon runner who\u2019d generously buy coffee and treats for anyone.<\/p>\n
Joaquin was buying java at the food truck when the senior\u2019s wayward car plowed into him, sending his body through its windshield, Abel Venancio said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reached the car,\u00a0and I tried to pull him out,\u201d he said, emotionally adding, \u201cI couldn\u2019t. It was hard.<\/p>\n
The elderly driver succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital after the crash. Obtained by the NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard, it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abel Venancio questioned what the elderly driver\u2019s family could have done to keep him from getting behind the wheel.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo drive like that in this area when it\u2019s 25\u00a0[mph], you have to be out of your mind,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The other victim \u2013 Baires \u2013 had brought his large brood from El Salvador and made a career in landscaping, his son Yoni Baires said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yoni began to cry as he thought about how his mother would react to his father\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
The out-of-control driver spun around after hitting the food truck and collided with a Volvo sedan. Peter Gerber<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was here just fixing his landscaping truck. He came out to buy coffee,\u201d Yoni Baires said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was the best. The best dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
The younger food-truck patron\u00a0\u2013 Venancio \u2013\u00a0was pronounced dead at the scene, cops said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The older customer, Baires,\u00a0as well as the elderly driver were taken to the Elmhurst Hospital Center, where they succumbed to their injuries, cops said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two fatal victims were not immediately\u00a0officially\u00a0identified\u00a0by police, pending family notification.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Francisco Neto, owner of a nearby doggie daycare, said he knew one of the victims for his work at a tire shop near the scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cVery nice guy,\u201d Neto said. \u201cHe helped us a lot with with the cars here, with the tires. He just replaced all four tires of my car the other day. It\u2019s sad.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a busy street for this area, extremely busy,\u201d he added. \u201cYou have the tire shop, the mechanic, the motorcycle place. So it gets busy, but never anything like this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men getting their morning coffee from a city food truck were killed Tuesday when an 84-year-old driver…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":141159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,21606,5303,84177,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,4413,39006,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-141158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-astoria","10":"tag-car-crashes","11":"tag-food-carts","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-queens","20":"tag-senior-citizens","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115018940028469275","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}