NY: Haredim killed on way to give birth; baby lives

Hit-and-run driver kills Orthodox Jewish couple from Brooklyn in accident that occurs while they're driving to hospital, infant survives.

By REUTERS
Orthodox man in Brooklyn 370 (photo credit: Michael Wilner)
Orthodox man in Brooklyn 370
(photo credit: Michael Wilner)
NEW YORK - New York Police began an intensive search on Sunday for a suspected hit-and-run driver and a passenger who fled an accident on Saturday that killed a young haredi couple on the way to the hospital to have their first baby, who survived.
Investigators launched what a police spokeswoman called a "full-on search" for the male driver and female passenger whose gray BMW sedan struck the side of a livery cab around midnight that was taking the Orthodox Jewish couple to the hospital.
The mother, Raizi Gluber, and the father, Nathan Gluber, both 21 years old, were pronounced dead at separate hospitals, but doctors at Bellevue were able to deliver a premature infant boy, police said.
The driver of the livery cab was listed in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital, police said.
"Upon impact, the male driver and additional occupant of Vehicle #2 fled the scene on foot, leaving the vehicle behind," police said in a statement.
A funeral was scheduled for Sunday in the largely Orthodox Jewish district of Williamsburg in the New York borough of Brooklyn, according to the website Vos Iz Neias (What's News?), which describes itself as the voice of the Orthodox Jewish community.
The couple's death was "a tragedy beyond (belief)," community leader Isaac Abraham told the website.