19-year-old killed while waiting for bus in Rockaway
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The scene of the crash on Rockaway Beach Boulevard in Rockaway on Saturday. Eagle Photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
A 19-year-old girl was killed on Saturday after a driver hit her while she was waiting for the bus in Rockaway Beach.
Ava Conklin, a college student in Vermont, was waiting at the Q53/Q22 bus stop on the corner of Beach 108th Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard after leaving work at the Rockaway Hotel directly across the street when she was hit by a 29-year-old driver.
Police sources told the Eagle that the driver had nodded off while driving westbound on Rockaway Beach Boulevard, which caused him to run up onto the sidewalk, tearing through the newly installed metal bus stop benches where Conklin was waiting.
The sources told the Eagle that Conklin was unconscious, had broken legs, and was rushed to Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn where she could not be saved.
She suffered severe chest trauma.
The driver, who was behind the wheel of a white Hyundai SUV, remained on the scene and was questioned by police but later released with no charges, which could change as the investigation progresses.
Locals and beach visitors crowded the scene on Saturday. The corner where the collision took place is a block away from the Rockaway ferry stop, a busy stretch of Rockaway Beach.
Conklin, whose father lives in nearby Broad Channel, was waiting for her younger sister at the bus stop to take a trip into the city, and had sent her family a selfie just moments before the crash, the Daily News reported.
Conklin’s family told the News that Conklin was a “bright soul.”
“She was always the emotional mediator,” her sister Peyton told the News. “I idolized her.”
Peyton got off the bus to meet her sister when she saw the aftermath of the scene, and recognized her sister’s bag and screamed before being pulled away by first responders.
There are now flowers on the fence where she was killed in Rockaway.
A memorial has been set up at the scene of the crash. Eagle photo by ryan schwach
Conklin was not the only person to die in a crash in the borough on Saturday.
Two people, a man and a woman, were killed driving on the Queens side of the Belt Parkway early on Saturday morning when they hit another car, lost control and hit a tree.
Vehicle collisions and deaths have been trending up this year, with the first quarter of 2023 being the deadliest quarter in Queens since before Vision Zero was implemented.
