An ambulette driver who worked for Sinai Van Service Inc., ran over my family’s dog, Rini, and killed her. He subsequently drove away from the scene of the accident when my mom asked him to stop.
This has devastated my family and we feel the pain of the loss every day since the accident. And to add insult to injury, we’ve gotten little or no help from the police, lawyers or the court system. We’ve faced indifference at almost every turn and even contempt in a few cases.
My mother has bipolar disorder and it was about two years ago that I bought her a pug. In a short amount of time I could see how Rini brought so much love into my mom’s life. My sisters and I also fell in love with her immediately. My mom spent almost every waking moment with Rini and I could see her living life more positively and happily.
On February 26 of this year, a white ambulette ran over Rini. She got run over once and possibly twice without stopping. My mom heard Rini scream violently twice. Rini was bleeding badly and my mom picked her up in a panic. A witness offered to hold her and told my mom to run down the white van and confront the driver so she did that. She knocked on the driver’s side window to tell the driver to stop. He opened the window and my mom told him that he ran over her dog and that he needed to stop. The driver said that the dog wasn’t his problem in Chinese and then started to drive off. My mom was holding on to the driver’s side door and didn’t want the driver to get away. As the omnibus drove off she was pulled alongside it. As the ambulette accelerated she couldn’t hold on any longer and fell to the ground hurting herself.
My mom called the police but they never sent anyone over to the scene of the accident.
Incidentally, the witness who was holding the dog saw a police car and managed to flag him down. The witness spoke to the police and described what happened. In the meantime Rini was bleeding and suffering badly. The police officer said he could not do anything for my mom or Rini because she was just “property” and not a person. My mom took Rini to the vet to try to save her life. The police later told us that they couldn’t file a police report because my mom left the scene of the accident but what was she supposed to do when her dog was bleeding to death? The police officer could not drive the dog to the vet and would not even offer help to catch a cab for my mom. The witness’s husband was kind enough to drive Rini and my mom to the vet.
At the vet, mom my got in contact with the Forest Hills police to see if they could help but they told her that she had to contact the Flushing Police Precinct (#109). She visited the Flushing police with her friend as the vet performed surgery to fix Rini. The Flushing police would not help her fill out the accident report and could only give her the ambulette’s registration and insurance information based on the license plate number caught in the photo.
Rini’s pelvis was broken in half and her guts spilled out below where her belly is. Her lung was heavily inflamed because of the trauma and it was filling up with blood. The vet was able to bind her pelvis together but he couldn’t stop the internal bleeding. It was so painful to watch her suffering on the operating table with tubes in her mouth and her breathing heavily. She died early the next morning even though the vet did everything he could to save her.
This loss was hard on everyone but especially my mom. She was completely devastated and the trauma triggered her bipolar disorder. My mom still feels the pain of her loss every moment.
We took my mom to the hospital the day after the accident because she was feeling pain in her body from the fall. She had pain in her back, legs and she had a headache. Although it technically wasn’t a hit and run, the driver was reckless and put my mom in danger by driving off.
She was very rude and cut us off when we tried to explain what had happened. The second time we were there she told us to leave the office because we “needed to leave.” When we went back the next day one of the police sergeants came out and spoke to us. He was kind but could not offer us any help other than hand us an accident report form for us to fill out. We fiiled this out and mailed it the next day. We went back the third time to get some more information and the lady sneered at us, “Even if the police commissioner was here it wouldn’t help you.” That was a very hurtful thing to say and completely unnecessary.
We also went to the Civil Court to inquire about filing a civil suit against the driver or his company – Sinai Van Service Inc.
Even if we submit a summons we don’t have any lawyer to represent us. We contacted the NYC Bar Referral but they told us that most lawyers are only interested in cases that are a minimum amount of $20,000. All we want is to find the guy who killed our dog and nothing else.
This whole experience taught me that animals have very few rights and if someone kills your dog then they can get away with it without even a slap on the wrist. Sinai Van Service refuses to help us identify the driver of the car. They said that without a police report they would not do anything for us. But it is their driver who killed our dog and fled the scene. The police said they won’t file a police report so we have hit a dead end. I feel like we will never get the closure that we seek as the driver will forever remain protected and blameless in the eyes of the law. We just want justice and closure.
If you know any lawyers in NYC or media that is willing to help us please let me know. And please pass on the story to all your friends and pet lovers.
I can be contacted at iqtsarah@yahoo.com Attn to Sarah Wu.
(The leash Rini was wearing at the time she was run over by the Sinai Van Service driver)
Sigh.... human. How inhumane.
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