Woman, 95, Survived Nazis, Chernobyl and the COVID Pandemic. Then She Was Killed While Crossing the Street
Mayya Gil, who was originally from Ukraine, died after being struck by a truck in Brooklyn on Thursday, Jan. 23
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A NYPD vehicleA 95-year-old woman — who had survived the Nazi invasion of Ukraine, the Chernobyl disaster and the COVID-19 pandemic — died after she was struck by a truck while crossing the street.
Mayya Gil was crossing the street in front of her Brooklyn apartment at around 12:45 p.m. local time on Thursday, Jan. 23, with the help of her 54-year-old health aide when the pair were struck by a cargo van trying to make a left turn, according to a statement from the New York Police Department obtained by PEOPLE.
Police said the health aide, who has not been identified publicly, sustained some leg injuries and was taken to a local hospital in stable condition, but Gil sustained a head injury and was taken to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn. There she succumbed to her injuries.
The driver, a 64-year-old man, was not arrested, according to police, who say the investigation remains ongoing.
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The street in front of Mayya Gil's home in Brooklyn, New York.Originally from Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, Gil fled to Kyiv with her mother and brother when she was 12 years old, according to a 2020 profile from The New York Times. There, she met her husband Vilyam, and the pair later welcomed twin daughters.
One of Gil's daughters, Irina Lizunova, told Gothamist that the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl prompted the family's other daughter, Larisa Vaynberg (who died of cancer in 2013 at age 58), to move to N.Y.C. According to The New York Times, the rest of the family followed her in 1992, moving to the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst, where the couple would become active community members at the local Jewish Community Center.
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Gil's husband died in 2020 after contracting COVID-19. She spoke candidly about his death to The New York Times, revealing that he spent his final two days in the hospital without her being able to visit.
"They wouldn’t let me see him, and he was too weak to say anything on the phone," Gil told the outlet at the time, speaking in Russian. "We couldn't say goodbye."
However, Gil looked back at her 68-year marriage with love, telling Times in 2020, "We were like one person."
Despite her hardships, Gil's family said they will remember her as a pillar of the community.
"Everybody knows her," Lizunova told Gothamist of her mother, who was also a great grandmother of seven. "She was a very active lady."
"She basically raised me since day one," added Gil's granddaughter, Natasha Famighetti. "She was the kindest, most generous person I’ve ever met."
Famighetti continued, "Nothing gave her more joy than just being around her family."
Read the original article on People