A 27-year-old woman killed when her drunk-driving longtime friend crashed their Tesla into Midtown scaffolding early Wednesday had a 3-month-old daughter who will now never know her mother, police and the victim’s heartbroken sister said.
Elise Suomi was a passenger in the Tesla when the driver, identified as her high school friend Alejandra Paharsingh, crashed the electric car into scaffolding and a bus stop pole near the intersection of E. 42nd St. and Madison Ave.
Paharsingh survived the crash with minor injuries and scored a .229% on a breathalyzer test — nearly three times the legal blood alcohol content limit of 0.08%, cops said. She had also posted a picture of a tequila bottle to a social media account in the hours before the crash.
After hitting the scaffolding, Paharsingh continued driving for four blocks before finally stopping at Second Ave., cops said.
Suomi, a Harlem resident, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital with a severe head injury and could not be saved.
“Her baby is beautiful. She looks just like her mother. She has blue eyes, brown hair,” Suomi’s sister, Jasmine Ortiz, told the Daily News in an exclusive interview.
“She’s only three months old,” Ortiz said about Elise’s daughter. “She won’t remember.”
Paharsingh is facing vehicular manslaughter charges, as well as driving while ability impaired and leaving the scene of an accident, cops said.
Ortiz said her sister and Paharsingh, also 27, had been friends since high school. Paharsingh also lives in Harlem, but the Tesla was owned by a woman who lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, cops said.
Suomi worked as a home health aide and attended classes at Swedish Institute College of Health Sciences, hoping to become a certified nursing assistant, her sister said.
“She was a young girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. It’s tragic,” Ortiz said.
Police said the Tesla was heading east on E. 42nd St. at about 2:45 a.m. when it jumped the sidewalk between Madison and Park Aves. The Tesla hit a scaffolding, a mailbox, and an MTA bus stop before veering back onto the road.
It kept going east on E. 42nd St. until the Tesla came to a stop at Second Ave., cops said.
Neither woman was wearing a seatbelt, police said.
The speed limit on E. 42nd St. is 25 mph, officials said. It was not immediately clear how fast the Tesla was going or if speed played a factor in the crash.
Suomi and her six siblings, including three brothers and three sisters, grew up in poverty and were no strangers to hard work, according to her brother.
“She understood struggle,” said the victim’s brother, who would only give his first name, Angel. “We grew up in the shelters. She was very motivated to beat the odds.”
“She had it together. She had her plans ready,” he said. “I was gonna pay for her school out of pocket. She was just a good kid. Never in trouble.”
Suomi was covering for her sister as a home health aide until around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to Oritz, who said she had no idea why her sister was in the car with Paharsingh so late at night.
“We don’t know why they were downtown,” said Ortiz. “They were out all the way up on Dyckman (St. in Inwood) and then that’s when her phone location cut off.”
“When I woke up in the morning, it said she still was on Dyckman,” she said.
Paharsingh’s arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Wednesday.
Ortiz wants to know why Paharsingh didn’t stop and call for help as soon as she hit the scaffolding.
“Why would you keep on going?” she asked. “Not stopping to call the cops and an ambulance? Your friend is injured.”
“She deserves whatever is coming for her,” Ortiz said. “She made a poor decision. She made her bed, and she has to lay in it.”
