After nearly two years, cops have charged the Brooklyn driver who fatally struck a heroic Park Slope nanny as she shoved a stroller carrying a 1-year-old boy out of the pickup truck’s path, cops said Thursday.
Mamadou Bathily, 70, remained at the scene following the Dec. 20, 2021 crash, but wasn’t arrested until Wednesday, when he was charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care — traffic violations punishable by hefty fines.
Bathily’s pickup truck was rumbling along Fifth Ave. about 10:40 a.m. when he made a turn onto Union St., just as Arcellie “Celi” Muschamp rolled little Rowan Duhaime across the street in a stroller.
Seeing the oncoming truck, Muschamp shoved the stroller out of the way as the truck struck her.
“The nanny must have, at the very last minute, pushed the stroller ahead of her,” witness Larry Weissman told the Daily News at the time. “We don’t think the pickup truck hit the stroller. It would have gone flying.”
Muschamp was rushed to the hospital, dying of her injuries 11 days later, heartbroken family members said.
Rowan’s parents, who put together a GoFundMe page together to raise money for Muschamp’s medical expenses, were left heartbroken by her passing.
“My wife and I will forever consider her the guardian angel of our son Rowan, whom she saved through her actions and sacrifice,” Rowan’s father Patrick Mullen said.
Muschamp, an immigrant from Belize, loved the children she was tasked with caring for, her daughter said.
“I had a chance to look at her cellphone recently and I looked at her pictures and 60% of them were of the child she was caring for,” Rahzel Muschamp said after her mom’s death. “That shows she loved these kids so much.”
Bathily was released without bail after a brief arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court Wednesday. He’s expected to fight the charges in court in January.
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