Mere minutes before being mowed down by a dozing driver as she waited for a bus on a Queens sidewalk, college student Ava Conklin spent her final moments snapping a light-hearted selfie and sending it to her beloved family.
Conklin, 19, had just wrapped up her shift as a hostess at the upscale Rockaway Hotel and was waiting at a bus stop to go picnicking with her kid sister in Central Park when she sent the selfie at 2:14 p.m. Saturday
“How does four minutes change your whole life?” her heartbroken stepmother, Jennifer Duffy, asked Sunday.
At 2:17 p.m., the 29-year-old driver of 2021 Hyundai Venue vaulted the sidewalk at Rockaway Beach Blvd. and Beach 108th St., slamming into Conklin at the bus stop.
Her 14-year-old sister Peyton stepped off an MTA bus to meet her big sister, texting Conklin “I’m here” — only to find herself surrounded by the crash’s aftermath.
She recognized her sister’s purse and the back of her head on the ground.
“All I could do was scream,” Peyton told the Daily News. “A bunch of people tried to calm me down but I told them, ‘Don’t try to calm me down! That’s my sister!’”
Two firefighters eventually pulled her away from the scene.
Conklin’s father showed up next and was devastated he wasn’t allowed into the ambulance with his dying daughter.
Medics rushed the teen to Brookdale University Hospital but she could not be saved.
Conklin’s favorite music was still playing in her earphones after she was hit, her still-shocked sister said.
Police took the driver into custody and questioned him but later released him without charges, an NYPD spokeswoman said. He could still face charges as the investigation continues.
Conklin, who just finished her first year studying psychology at a college in Vermont, was living in Hell’s Kitchen with her mother. The teen hoped to have children of her own.
Her father, who lives in Broad Channel, was too devastated to speak to a reporter Sunday. The bookshelves of his family’s home are…
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