By Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MIDTOWN — A cab hit a pedestrian after colliding with a green minivan at West 49th Street and 10th Avenue on Thursday morning.
The pedestrian was taken to Bellevue Hospital with an unspecified injury just after the accident about 11:35 a.m. Witnesses said the pedestrian was up and walking soon after she was hit.
"The green minivan looked like it was turning left, or into the parking lot [on 10th Avenue], and the taxi cut in front like it was trying to pick up a fare, the lady," said Robert James, who saw the accident.
"He didn't get the fare, but he did get that lady, she jumped then fell back," added James, who works in a hardware store opposite the intersection where the accident took place. He said the front of the minivan and the side of the taxi collided.
Taxi driver Rahman Sydur, 40, said he was still shaken by the incident.
"I had the green light going north on 10th Avenue, this lady crossed through the red light and hit the cab," he said.
Sydur, who has been driving a cab in the city for eight years, said he couldn't tell how the accident had happened, or how a pedestrian got caught up in it.
"There were a lot of people on the corner standing and talking," he said. "One lady stepped in front of the car, but I was already slowing down, and I stopped short."
But the minivan driver had a different story.
Freddy Alarcon, whose daughter Jennifer had been driving the minivan, said his daughter told him she had the green light when the taxi swerved in front of her, causing the collision.
"She called me and she said the taxi didn't stop [for] the red, 'now there's an accident, please come fast,'" he said. "We were worried for the baby, she's eight months pregnant, but they're both okay," he said, adding that she was taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Midtown.
"She promised me yesterday she'd stop driving now," said Alarcon, from Brooklyn.
"But look," he said pointing at the crushed front of the minivan.
