Three Bronx teens got into a car accident on the Bruckner Expressway early yesterday morning after an apparent evening of tagging. One of the trio, 16-year-old Shaadieq Hicks, is in a coma after he was thrown from the backseat and through the windshield when the van overturned; the driver may be facing manslaughter charges if Hicks dies. "They're saying my baby might not pull out. His heart stopped twice today. They said he won't be the same," Hicks' distraught mother, 31-year-old Shinkikwah Burke, told the News.
The driver of the van, 17-year-old Alex Seeraj, was reportedly speeding westbound along Bruckner Blvd. below the Bruckner Expressway around 3 a.m. yesterday when he lost control and crashed into a barricade; the van tumbled over into the eastbound lane before coming to a stop upside-down next to a fence. Car parts, including one of the van's wheels and the rear set of seats, were strewn across the expressway. Seeraj has now been handcuffed to his hospital bed with a cop watching him. "It's not all necessarily his fault, but he's looking at a murder case right now. That's what the cops are telling us, if Shaadieq dies," said friend Hazel Vigo.
Vigo gave some clues as to what the trio were up to before their crash: she said that they are into graffiti, "so they took the car out late. Cops found the graffiti cans and flares in the car." The other survivor of the crash, 17-year-old Gerald Pagan, said, "It all happened so fast. We didn't know what happened."
