Fourteen injured, 4 of them in serious condition, as elderly driver takes abrupt turn in Long Island.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFchabad hanukkah accident 248.88(photo credit: )
A car slammed into a building where Orthodox Jewish families were celebrating Hanukka on Thursday, injuring 14 people, police said.
Police said the injured ranged in age from 1½ to 40, and four were hospitalized in serious condition. At least six of the injured were young children, hospital officials said.
The families from the Chabad movement were celebrating Hanukka Wonderland, an all-day celebration with events geared for children, including a crafts corner and a Hanukka theater.
About 150 people were inside the building when a 78-year-old man lost control of his car and plowed through a plate-glass window, Nassau County police said.
"He makes an abrupt left turn. It actually forces the car that's parked along the side of the road up onto the sidewalk," Nassau County police Lt. Kevin Smith said. "His car careens through several plateglass windows, enters the building and comes to rest after basically running over ... several people."
No charges had been filed against the driver Thursday evening, police said.
The Hanukka Wonderland event was sponsored by Chabad of the Five Towns, representing the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community on Long Island, and held in Woodmere, 40 kilometers southeast of Manhattan.
The community's Web site said the event would feature a Hanukkah theater and the building of menorahs and four-sided dreidels out of Lego toys.
"We are doing whatever we possibly can for the families of these children during this most difficult of times and urge all people of good will to keep them in their prayers," Rabbi Zalman Wolowik, director of the Chabad of the Five Towns, said in a statement posted on the Web site.
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