Elderly woman killed in Brooklyn hit-run was second person in her family to be killed by a driver in the borough

An elderly grandmother killed in a Brooklyn hit-and-run had a daughter who was killed in a similar crash 10 years earlier, the woman’s devastated family said Thursday.

“It wasn’t her time,” the daughter told the Daily News. “She had no health issues. She still would’ve been living.”

Margie Salter, 91, was crossing Rockaway Parkway near Skidmore Ave. mid-block in Canarsie when she was struck by the driver of a light-colored sedan around 6:50 p.m. Dec. 29, cops said.

Margie Salter, 91.

Salter, who was hit in front of a Key Food she had just left, suffered a massive head injury, police said.

Medics rushed the woman to Brookdale University Hospital.

The next day, one of Salter’s 11 children went to pick her up for a family member’s funeral but when she arrived, the door was unlocked and she wasn’t there.

“She had broken legs, broken ribs, broken pelvis and she was bleeding internally,” said her daughter Martha Salter, 63. “They were going to try to stop the bleeding, but her kidneys failed and her heart stopped.”

Margie Salter was hit in the middle of Rockaway Ave. near Skidmore Ave. nearby the tree in front of Key Foods. She lived just across the street.

Salter died at the hospital Sunday surrounded by her children who live locally and at least one grandchild.

“I couldn’t get a flight, my flight was canceled on Monday,” said Martha, who lives in North Carolina. “I was trying to get there. She had already passed when I got here.”

The intersection Salter was killed at is notorious in the neighborhood and forces wary pedestrians to cross mid-block, the woman’s neighbor told The News.

“It’s really scary to cross over that area,” said the woman, who asked not to be named. “Jaywalking is the best way to do it. They all try to beat the lights. They beat the light.”

Martha believes the intersection prompts drivers to speed as some of its lanes empty out onto the busy Belt Parkway.

A balloon one of Margie Salter's kids brought after she was hit by a car.

“People turning to the left, immediately they put their foot on the gas,” the neighbor said. “It’s so treacherous to cross the street there. You really have to be careful.”

It was the second time the family lost someone at the hands of a hit-and-run driver in Brooklyn.

Salter’s daughter, Priscilla Wells, 56, was using a mobility scooter to cross Eastern Parkway at Utica Ave. in Crown Heights in May 2012 when a driver struck her.

“She died the same way,” Martha said of her sister. “My sister was disabled. My mother called me, she was screaming.”

Salter lived with and took care of her 56-year-old autistic son.

“He don’t know his mother is dead,” said Martha. “He’s wondering why I’m here. He know something’s wrong cause I’ve been here. We’re not gonna tell him yet.”

Salter was married to a man she met in New York who died 23 years ago. She was a mother to 11 children and a grandmother to 50.

A Mother's Day gift Margie Salter kept on her kitchen table from one of her kids in May.

“She loved her grandkids, she loved her kids too,” Martha said. “Good mother, good grandmother. Strong mind.”

Her daughter told The News that Salter would “give you the shirt off her back.”

“She was a very strong-minded, spicy woman,” Martha said. “Loving person. Godly woman.”

Police are still looking for the driver who killed Salter.

Investigators are working to determine if the driver may have not realized they hit someone.

“I don’t forgive the part that you didn’t stop to see what happened,” Martha said. “It could be your mother, anybody’s mother, anybody. It could be anybody. You didn’t stop. How [do] you keep going?”

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