NEW YORK The New York Daily News has learned that the 44-year-old drunk driver who crashed into a Lower East Side park on July 4th, killing three people, including a mother and her son, is a lecturer and substance abuse counselor who was arrested for assault last year after punching a student who didn’t agree with his teaching methods.
About fifty miles from the scene of the collision, in Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, Daniel Hyden was charged by police for driving while intoxicated and for not having a valid driver’s license. According to police, more charges might be brought as the investigation goes on.
Just minutes before the Independence Day fireworks were scheduled to burst over Manhattan, at 8:55 p.m., a holiday party within Corlears Hook Park on the corner of Water St. and Jackson St. erupted into a blood-soaked horror show, injuring eight more people, according to police.
According to Hyden’s LinkedIn page, he is the author of “The Sober Addict: A Guide on How to Be Functional With the Dysfunctional Disease of Addiction” and serves as a program director for Services for the UnderServed in Manhattan.
Hyden, also known as DC Hyden, stated on his LinkedIn page that “my jobs are my passions and each allows me to advocate on behalf of all those impacted by the disease of addiction.” “I want to use my lifelong experience with addiction to help others who are struggling with addiction learn how to save themselves and get sober.”
The Services for the UnderServed did not promptly respond to a call or email on Friday.
Horrified witnesses described Hyden as tearing through a gathering of people, smashing through a fence, jumping a curb, and blowing past a stop sign while driving fast through the Lower East Side in his Ford F-150 pickup truck.
After the collision, witness Juan Roman told the Daily News, “He plowed into the fence.” “You could hear the benches collapsing and the metal shearing.”
Roman estimated that about thirty holiday-goers were in the way of the truck when Hyden crashed straight into a family of four who were grilling.
More than a dozen victims were lying on the ground in twisted heaps like broken dolls when the police came. There were still a few victims beneath the pickup truck.
Roman, 62, stated, “I saw at least three people under the truck.” They were unable to respond in time. They were simply devastated.
According to police reports, Lucille Pinkney,59, and her son Hernan Pinkney,38, were among the deceased. A woman who was taken to Bellevue Hospital but whose identity was still unknown on Friday was also listed among the deceased.
Police added that when Pinkney and her kid were taken to New York Presbyterian Hospital, they both passed away from their wounds within an hour of one another. Additionally, a 30-year-old lady with serious injuries all over her body was sent to New York Presbyterian Hospital and was still in critical condition on Friday.
Among the eight injured were an 11-year-old child and his 33-year-old mother, according to police. Flying debris cut the child’s eye, according to a police source with knowledge of the incident.
According to Roman, a “mob” of people dragged the driver out of the automobile and “started beating him” while the victims lay pinned beneath Hyden’s pickup truck.
“I was stunned,” Roman remarked. “It’s an image I won’t be letting go of anytime soon.”
Hyden was detained on February 29, 2023, for striking a 41-year-old pupil who objected to his “teaching methods,” according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the incident. He was teaching at Recoveries R Us on E. 105th St. in East Harlem at the time. There was no major injury to the pupil.
Hyden quit Recoveries R Us around the time of his arrest, according to his LinkedIn page.
After responding to the scene, Mayor Adams described the fatal crash on Thursday as “a tragic incident.”
Standing beside to NYPD and FDNY officials, he stated, “A driver drove into a crowd of people who were just celebrating like so many New Yorkers and Americans are doing right now.”
Hyden was still awaiting his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court.
