A 95-year-old woman who survived a Nazi invasion, the Chernobyl disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic was killed when a van hit her as she crossed the street Jan. 24.
Mayya Gil was crossing with a health aide, a 54-year-old woman, at 12:40 p.m. when a Ford Transit turned left off 24th Avenue onto Cropsey Avenue and hit both of them, cops said.
Gil was pronounced dead at NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn. The aide was in stable condition.
The driver, a 64-year-old man, stayed at the scene and was not arrested.
The investigation is ongoing.
According to a 2020 New York Times article, Gil was born in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, and fled to Kyiv with her family at age 12 after the Nazis invaded the town.
A few years later she met her husband Vilyam and gave birth to twins. After the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, one of their daughters, Irina Lizunova, moved to Bensonhurst, she told Gothamist. The rest of the family moved to the neighborhood in 1992.
Vilyam died of COVID-19 in 2020.
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