The elderly woman fatally struck by a “maniac” driver fleeing cops in Brooklyn was a grandmother and “beautiful person” who “helped everyone in the neighborhood,” grieving friends said Friday — as new video emerged of the horror.
Juanita Vidal, 71, was hit by a speeding blue Mazda CX-5 SUV that also rammed into her 44-year-old daughter Jessica as the pair walked at Eldert Street and Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick around 5 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.
“Right now, I am holding my emotions in,” Vidal’s stricken daughter told The Post when reached by phone Friday, struggling to speak and appearing to still be hospitalized after witnessing her mother’s horrific death.
Jessica can be seen in footage kneeling beside her mother at the scene and weeping as a cop futilely performs CPR on her.
“My lungs are punctured, and it’s hard for me to talk,” Jessica told The Post.
But Vidal’s many friends poured out their grief over the tragedy.
“I feel bad. Everybody is sad,” George Alvarez, 65, said.
“When I saw the video, the way [the suspect] was driving, he was a maniac. At the speed he was going, the daughter is lucky to be alive.”
Cops were still searching for the driver Friday.
“She was a healthy woman,” Alvarez said of Vidal.
“He cut her life short, and I’m angry because she was my friend.”
Surveillance footage obtained by The Post shows the SUV – which sources say cops were pursuing for a traffic infraction – speeding east on Eldert Street through the intersection and nearly hit a red car traveling on Knickerbocker Street as a police car trails only a few seconds behind.
Cops confirmed that the driver disobeyed two stop signs and swerved to the left to avoid striking another car before hitting the mother and daughter.
He then struck a Chevy van, which ended up slamming into a Honda, police said.
Video shows Jessica wincing in pain as an officer holds her up, as blood runs down her cheek.
Another clip captures a cop performing chest compressions on Vidal with her crying daughter behind her.
A man can be heard yelling, “Call the ambulance!”
Friends said Vidal had three children in New York and more in her native Puerto Rico, as well as Boston.
She had at least 10 grandchildren – four from her daughter and six between her two sons.
“I’ve always seen her with her children when they were growing up,” Alvarez said.
“She was a good mother and very close to her children.”
Nancy Varela said through tears that the slain woman once lived with her before moving in with her daughter – where she’d lived for about a decade.
Vidal still spent a few nights at Varela’s home from time to time – and had planned to visit on the night her life was tragically taken.
“I saw her Wednesday. I said, ‘I’m going to make soup for us tomorrow, and she said, ‘I’ll be there,’ ” the friend said. “She usually came late in the afternoon — 5, 6, 7 — but she never came.”
Vidal’s favorite soup was “ham and salchichon,” a Puerto Rican soup made with a Spanish summer sausage, ham, noodles, and potatoes.
“She was a beautiful person. She helped everyone in the neighborhood. Everybody loved her,” Varela said, wiping tears from her eyes.
Nancy’s daughter Angie described Vidal as essentially “family.
“She loved my kids as a grandmother would,” Angie said.
“That’s the type of person she was. My son is 23. He’s sitting in his car crying…devastated. He is not saying anything. It hit him hard.”
“She used to say to my kids, ‘No, no, no, no,’ shaking her index finger,” Angie said of moments when her kids were younger and stepped out of line.
“She made it into a song. Then my children started imitating her. … It’s the little things.”
As for the reckless driver, “Do you know how many kids come out of school at that time?” Angie said.
“He could’ve hit kids, killed the kids. He was heartless, only cared about himself, not wanting to get caught.”
Her husband Joshua, 48, added, “He left everyone devastated. I hope he turned himself in. He made that choice to commit a crime, so he should go to prison.”
