Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Wheelchair-Bound Actress Hit by Garbage Truck in West Village

By Serena Solomon | November 5, 2009 6:33pm | Updated on November 6, 2009 8:39am
The wreckage of Shami Chaikin's motorized wheelchair after she swerved to avoid a sanitation truck parked in a bike lane on Eighth Avenue.
The wreckage of Shami Chaikin's motorized wheelchair after she swerved to avoid a sanitation truck parked in a bike lane on Eighth Avenue.
View Full Caption
Serena Solomon/DNAinfo

By Serena Solomon

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

WEST VILLAGE — A local actress and writer was critically injured Thursday after she was struck by a sanitation truck on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Bleecker Street.

Shami Chaikin, 78, was in a motorized wheelchair travelling down a bike lane on Eighth Avenue when she attempted to pass an idling garbage truck, witnesses said, but the truck pulled out and hit her just before 10 a.m.

Chaikin, who lives in the Westbeth Artists Community, was taken to St. Vincent's hospital with head injuries. She is in serious condition, police said.

"The ambulance was there for a long time so I knew it was not good," said Alison Nelson, who owns the Chocolate Bar on Eighth Avenue.

The wreckage of Shami Chaikin's motorized wheelchair after she was struck by a sanitation truck on Eighth Avenue in the West Village Thursday morning.
The wreckage of Shami Chaikin's motorized wheelchair after she was struck by a sanitation truck on Eighth Avenue in the West Village Thursday morning.
View Full Caption
Serena Solomon/DNAinfo

Chaikin's accident happened near Abingdon Square where a labyrinth of three intersections surround the triangle-shaped park and the bike lane running along the Eighth Avenue side.

"It's these bike lanes," said Nelson. "Right after this happened there were two beer trucks driving up the bikes lanes making deliveries. It gives pedestrians a false sense of security."

Strollers, pedestrians, wheelchairs and even police cars use the bike lanes, according to Nelson.

"Coming to this corner, we old people are not confident," said Hedy O'Beil,  another elderly resident at Westbeth. "There are so many lines and directions."

O'Beil, who is a friend of Chaikin, described the actress as an outrageous character who is well liked in the Westbeth community.

"Two weeks ago she was in a play and the place was filled," O'Beil said. "She has great personality."

Chaikin performed in dozens of performances on stage over her career and appeared on the soap opera One Life to Live. She's the sister of the late director and playwright Joseph Chaikin, according to several of her friends.

Investigators on the scene of the accident involving a wheel chair bound woman and a garbage truck on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Bleecker Street.
Investigators on the scene of the accident involving a wheel chair bound woman and a garbage truck on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Bleecker Street.
View Full Caption
Serena Solomon/DNAinfo

Fellow Westbeth resident Bruce Smith, 67, said he saw Chaikin perform in a play 15 years ago.

"We saw her in a one-woman show about a homeless woman," he said, "She was fantastic."