A 65-year-old pedestrian killed by a speeding unlicensed driver in a crazed caught-on-camera crash that also killed a motorist was a loving grandmother forced into retirement by the COVID pandemic, her heartbroken daughter said on Monday.
Betty Yuet-Mei Tam Leung was using a cane to navigate home from an acupuncture appointment for her knees last week when she was hit by a spinning SUV that had just been struck by the out-of-control driver in a Bensonhurst intersection.
Tam Leung was recovering from a knee injury and just starting to get out more, her daughter said.
“She had just finished a doctor’s appointment and she was heading home and that’s what happened,” said the daughter, Toby Tam. “She was doing acupuncture. She was going once a week. Because her knee is not that great she used a cane to walk.”
The chain reaction collision also killed the driver of the SUV that struck her.
Tam Leung had become a full-time homemaker after a COVID cutback eliminated her job at a Chinatown pharmacy. She spent most weeks caring for her ailing husband in their home just two blocks from where she was struck. She was looking forward to a trip with her daughter to her native Hong Kong.
“Mom loves to travel,” Tam said. ”She loves to go to Hong Kong. We still have family there. We were planning to go together at the end of this year.”
Though she missed her pharmacy job, Tam Leung was growing into her new gig — being a grandmother.
“My brother would visit her with his daughter,” Tam said. “My mom loved her granddaughter. Her wish was just to watch her grow up. Every time my niece went to visit my mom, my mom would be so happy. The weekend was what she always looked forward to.”
The crash sent an Uber driver’s Honda CR-V spinning into Tam Leung on March 20. The Uber driver, Stancho Stanchev, 51, was also killed.
Stanchev’s stepson Rezo Bunturi, 26, said the crash destroyed his family.
“I want justice to be served,” Bunturi said in an exclusive interview…
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