The 28-year-old web designer who was the victim of a hit-and-run accident in Greenpoint early Sunday morning will be taken off life support today, a friend of the deceased tells Gothamist. Police say Neil Chamberlain, a native of Lexington, Massachusetts who now resides in Williamsburg, was run over shortly before 4 a.m. on Calyer Street between McGuinness Boulevard and Newel Street. Police have no description of the vehicle that struck Chamberlain and fled the scene. [We reported earlier that Chamberlain had been taken off life support; another friend now tells us they are waiting for his father to arrive.] One of Chamberlain's friends says:
They don't know much. A fellow driver may have seen him get hit, but certainly saw the body, phoned him in to the ambulance. They got there quickly enough to prevent him from dying on the spot. In most other cities in the U.S. and probably in many other parts of Brooklyn, he would have died right there on the spot if the ambulance had taken longer. A giant piece of his skull was smashed in by the car or the pavement. He had a big hole in his skull on his bed and was brain dead from Sunday morning till now.
It's unclear if the NYPD has made any progress in tracking down the driver. But Chamberlain's friend adds, "It's scary how fast people drive on McGuinness when it's very late at night because there is no traffic and there are no traffic cops around... Neil was just a pedestrian. I don't know if he was at fault in any way (whether or not he was standing into the street during a green light) or not, no one does. But I don't care. He's dead. Life is short."
