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By Rebecca White, Theodore Parisienne and Thomas Tracy

New York Daily News

Jun 09, 2023 at 2:34 pm

A St.Kitts National and Bronx mother of three crushed by her own Mercedes-Benz SUV as she tried to stop it from rolling down a hilly street died of her injuries after lapsing into a coma, police and heartbroken neighbors said Friday.

Sheryll Brookes, 52, was parking her SUV on E. 234th St. near Vereo Ave. in Woodlawn Heights about 6:20 a.m. on May 26 when she stepped outside her vehicle to see if she was in a legal parking spot.

As she tried to get back into the car, it rolled down the street with the driver’s door still open, cops and witnesses said.

“She was half in and half out of the car,” said one witness, who would only identify himself as Michael. “I don’t think the engine was on. I gather she was trying to grab the brake.”

As the car headed down the hill, its open door struck a city sign before it continued through an intersection to the next block, where it began veering onto the sidewalk, cops said.

Brookes managed to jump out of the SUV when it sideswiped a brick-faced apartment building, recalled Michael, 77.

“The door really hit the wall. It really hurt her,” he said. “It slammed her. She went backwards.”

When Michael ran over, Brookes wasn’t conscious, he recalled.

“She wasn’t talking,” he said.

Brookes was crushed between her SUV and the building and suffered extensive injuries to her head and chest, cops said.

EMS rushed her to Montefiore Medical Center, where she died June 2, a week after the accident.

Brookes had lived in Fordham Heights with her elderly father, about four miles from where the crash occurred, but had recently moved out, neighbors said.

Word of the crash hit Brookes’ father like hammer, next-door neighbor Andrea Bolden said.

“Her father came knocking on my door hollering and screaming, ‘Sheryll was in an accident and she’s in a coma!’” Bolden, 79, told the Daily News. “I tried to calm him down. That’s all I wanted to do — calm him down. He was hysterical. Hysterical.

“It’s a tragedy,” she said. “She had three children. Two boys and one girl.”

An investigation into the crash was continuing, cops said