‘I could just hear him screaming’: Australian mum and son trapped under NYC taxi

A Perth mother has recounted desperately holding on to her screaming nine-year-old son’s hand after both were trapped under a taxi in New York.

Rebecca Stewart was visiting the city with her husband and son when a taxi jumped a kerb and hit pedestrians outside the Macy’s flagship store after the driver suffered a medical episode, police said.

The cab jumped the kerb and hit pedestrians in Manhattan on Christmas Day.Credit: Aron Ranen via AP

She and her son were among the seven people injured, including the 58-year-old taxi driver. Three people were taken to hospital.

“I just felt this massive impact behind me and then the next thing I knew I was face down on the pavement and all I could hear was the wheels ... spinning next to my head,” she told Seven News.

Rebecca Stewart says she is grateful to be alive after she and her nine-year-old son were trapped under a taxi in New York.Credit: Seven

“I was holding my son’s hand. I could just hear him screaming as well. I could hear my husband screaming, just asking everyone to get the car off us. It was pretty horrific.”

One witness told Seven the boy’s leg was trapped under one of the taxi’s wheels as the tyre spun and smoked before several people lifted the car off the family.

Stewart, who has been discharged from hospital, said her son had suffered severe burns and a degloving injury where the tyre had spun on his skin, and had undergone several surgeries.

“I’m very grateful that we are even alive,” Stewart said.

“I don’t know how we survived to be honest.”

In an earlier interview with ABC7, Stewart said her son would remain in hospital for “quite some time”.

Witnesses try to lift the taxi off trapped pedestrians.Credit: Seven

The incident took place in Midtown Manhattan in Herald Square near the corner of West 34th Street on Christmas Day. The store, with its elaborately decorated display windows, is a magnet for tourists and native New Yorkers around the holidays.

“There was a whole group of us that ripped the fender off, lifted the car back and then that’s when I grabbed the little boy, got him to the corner, realised that what ended up being his mom underneath,” witness Ryan Tucker told ABC7 New York. Tucker said his wife was hit in the back by the taxi but was OK.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing consular assistance to two Australians in the US. “Owing to our privacy obligations we are unable to provide further comment,” the spokesperson said.

The three pedestrians declined medical attention, said police, who added that all the injuries were non-life-threatening.

An NYPD spokesperson said the driver was having a medical episode at the time, but would not elaborate. No criminality was suspected. The taxi driver was taken to hospital in a stable condition for further evaluation.

NBC said no charges had been filed and an investigation into the crash was ongoing.

With Reuters and AP

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