Drunken Driver Hits Toddler In Stroller With 2 Grandmas, Then Takes Off, Police Say

NEW YORK (AP) _ A woman driving home after a mid-afternoon vodka binge ran over and injured a 3-year-old girl and her family, prosecutors said, not bothering to stop until someone saw the toddler's

Sunday, August 5th 2007, 9:37 pm

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) _ A woman driving home after a mid-afternoon vodka binge ran over and injured a 3-year-old girl and her family, prosecutors said, not bothering to stop until someone saw the toddler's stroller being dragged and yelled, ``Look what's under your car!''

The girl, Mia Tetelman, her grandmother and her great-grandmother were crossing a boulevard in Queens on Saturday afternoon when they were run over.

Mia was hurled from her stroller, breaking her ribs and bruising her lungs; she was in critical condition Sunday. Her grandmother, Aviva Govshovitz, 57, suffered cuts and bruises. Her great-grandmother, Frida Shein, 86, was left with a broken rib, a black eye and other injuries.

The driver, Susan E. Karnabe, went home after a passer-by pulled the girl's stroller out from under her car, even though witnesses told her she had hit people, prosecutors said.

When police officers tracked her down at home later Saturday using a license plate number and descriptions from witnesses, her breath smelled of alcohol, her walking was unsteady and her speech was slurred, prosecutors said.

She admitted drinking a bottle of vodka before getting in her car, and a test showed her blood-alcohol content at 0.094 percent, above New York's legal limit of 0.08 percent, they said.

Karnabe was being held Sunday pending arraignment on charges including drunken driving, vehicular assault, reckless endangerment, endangering the welfare of a child and leaving the scene of an accident. If convicted, Karnabe, 54, could face up to seven years in prison.

A telephone message left at her home Sunday was not immediately returned. She did not yet have an attorney.

Karnabe told police she started drinking at 2 p.m. Saturday and downed a bottle of vodka, prosecutors said. She said that as she drove home from her son's house she hit something and heard people screaming, then noticed damage to her car when she got home at 3 p.m., they said.

Queens prosecutor Richard A. Brown called drinking and driving ``a deadly combination'' that can turn a car into ``a lethal weapon.''