Fruit stand worker injured in East Side crash grateful to be alive

Click here for updates on this story

    NEW YORK (WCBS) — An outdoor dining spot was leveled after a car crash Friday on the East Side.

Several people were injured in that crash, including one man who believes he could have been killed.

“It comes to my mind that, like, I could’ve died,” Sohaib Annabi told CBS2’s Dave Carlin.

Annabi was in pain and walking slowly Saturday. He was one of the eight people injured Friday morning when a van crashed into a car along Second Avenue at East 50th Street.

An outdoor dining structure was demolished, scaffolding and sign poles came down, and the fruit-and-vegetable stand where Annabi was working was obliterated. Debris stuck him.

“It hit me, like, in the back,” he said.

He shared cell phone video he took moments after he got himself up off the ground.

The video shows the van resting in the very spot he would often stand in to bag customers’ produce.

Two children were also among the injured. All are expected to survive.

“They took us to the hospital, NYU, then they do for us, like X-ray, everything … There is no fractures, no anything,” Annabi said.

But it hurts?” Carlin asked.

“It hurts,” Annabi said.

Authorities say the 66-year-old van driver likely experienced a medical episode and rear-ended the sedan, which was pushed into the dining area that was mercifully empty of people.

There are residents who said they thought nothing of strolling along Second Avenue and dining in outdoor structures, but now they say they feel nervous about that.

“We’ll reconsider and think about whether or not we wanna eat on a main avenue,” East Side resident Haley Ratner said.

Annabi says he needs time away from work to heal.

His roommate Mohamed Taha helped reconstruct the produce stand in less than a day and is filling in.

What happened is emotional for him even though he wasn’t there.

“I cried. Believe me, I cried ’cause he’s my best friend,” Taha said.

“I never thought, like, that can happen,” Annabi said. “I thank God morning and night just because I was in that time, in that place.”

Annabi says at the moment of the crash, he had just stepped away to stand in a patch of sunlight — light that he says saved his life.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.