Two dead and nine injured after truck collides with group celebrating July 4 in Manhattan park

Three people were killed and eight others injured when a pickup truck drove into a group celebrating Independence Day on July 4 in New York City, authorities said.

Just before 9 p.m. Thursday, a Ford F-150 was traveling down a street “at a high rate of speed.” The truck passed through an intersection and a stop sign, drove onto the sidewalk and into Corlears Hook Park on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, New York Police Chief Jeffrey Maddrey said during a news conference.

Two of the victims were identified as Lucille Pinkney, 59, and her son Hernan Pinkney, 38. The third victim could not be immediately identified.

The driver, 44-year-old Daniel Hyden, was charged with drunk driving and driving without a license, police said.

Hyden is awaiting arraignment on Friday and does not yet have an attorney available to speak on his behalf, a Manhattan district attorney’s office spokesman said. Hyden’s phone number is not listed in public records.

Assistant Fire Chief Michael Meyers said the first crew to arrive on the scene found the pickup truck on top of four of the victims. Firefighters worked to quickly free them before emergency personnel began treatment, Meyers said.

According to police, the injured in the accident, who were taken to nearby hospitals, include an 11-year-old boy, an 18-year-old woman and several people in their thirties.

The accident occurred about half an hour before the Macy’s fireworks and other fireworks displays in New York began.

“A tragic incident occurred here,” said New York Mayor Eric Adams. “A driver drove into a crowd of people who were just celebrating, as so many New Yorkers and Americans are doing right now.”

The crash came days after four people, including an NYPD officer, were killed when a driver rammed his SUV into a nail salon in Deer Park, Long Island. The driver in the crash was charged with drunken driving and pleaded not guilty.