Woman killed by minivan; teens take baby to safety

LYNN – A teenage couple recalled Sunday how they had asked a woman with a baby for directions. Moments later, they said, they watched in horror as a minivan struck and killed the woman.”I just kept telling him to get out,” Moises Baez, 18, of Chelsea, said of the driver. “And she was with the baby, who was crying, and we were just like yelling at him to stop.”Lynn Police said the woman was killed when she was struck at approximately 5:38 p.m. Sunday in a parking lot near the intersection of Boston and Hamilton streets at the Lynn and Saugus border, according to an email from Lynn Police Lt. Dave Brown.He said the initial investigation suggests the driver of the vehicle was backing out of a parking spot and struck a female who was pushing a young child in a carriage. The woman, a 61-year-old Lynn resident, died from her injuries, Brown said. The baby appeared to be unhurt but was taken to North Shore Children’s Hospital in Salem for observation, Brown said.He said the incident remains under investigation and police are not releasing the identities of the involved parties or any additional details regarding the accident.”That kid has something going for it,” Amanda Arsenault, 17, also of Chelsea, said. “The dent was on the back left side of the car, and the baby carriage was just out of the way.”A body lay covered by a sheet at the scene in a parking lot between Riverside II convenience store and Marshview Park on the Lynn side of the Saugus River. Next to the body, a dusty, dark-green minivan, immobilized with blocks under its rear tires, had a large dent on the left back corner.Baez and Arsenault said they were on a date at the park Sunday afternoon. They said they had just asked the woman for directions so that they could call a relative for a ride. The woman and her baby and the couple parted. The couple said they next saw the woman underneath the tires of the minivan, which was being driven back and forth over the woman.”He was just burning out on her,” said Baez. He and Arsenault described how the driver of the minivan accelerated the vehicle, trying to get over the body. The driver then tried going forward, and then back again, they said.They said they rushed to the scene: Arsenault to the baby that was lying on the ground and Baez to get the driver to stop.Witnesses and Arsenault said she scooped up the baby, which Arsenault said was a girl. She said the baby was crying and had a bump on her head from falling to the ground but otherwise appeared okay.”She wanted to walk around,” Arsenault recalled.Baez said he saw the injuries the woman suffered and saw she wasn’t moving and he immediately suspected she was dead.Baez said the driver of the vehicle had trouble understanding English and was listening to very loud music. But Baez said he finally got the man to stop the car.”I still don’t understand how he didn’t feel he hit somebody, because that dent’s pretty huge,” Baez said.They said that police arrived immediately and told them the victim was the child’s grandmother.”She was really nice, too,” Arsenault said. “She was a grandmother, they said, but she was young. She still had some pep in her.”Cyrus Moulton can be reached at [email protected].