Woman who escaped car crash is struck and killed as she tries to retrieve purse

The Good Samaritans who helped 25-year-old Brittany Leith exit her overturned car early Sunday morning begged the single mom not to cross a New York parkway alone to get her purse.

But Leith didn’t heed the warnings, and just minutes after escaping one potentially deadly accident, Leith was struck and killed by a passing car on Long Island’s Southern State Parkway, the New York Post reported.

“She has a 3-year-old daughter…who doesn’t have a mother anymore,” said Brittany’s grandmother, Anna Leith.

“I was told someone was there to help her out of the car, but she could have hit her head and been out of it. Somebody should have held on to her and not let her run back into the street.”

Brittany was coming home from a friend’s house, her grandmother told the Post, when her 2006 Nissan Sentra struck the center median and flipped over in the left lane of the westbound Parkway. She initially made it to safety on the right shoulder, but decided to return to her car – which did not have its lights on. She was near the side of the car when the driver of a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu sideswiped the car and struck Leith, cops told Newsday.

That driver, who has not been identified, told police he was originally traveling in the right lane but switched to the left lane when he saw “lights” and “commotion” at the right shoulder, Newsday reported. The driver said he never saw Leith or her car.

There was no alcohol in the driver's system, he cooperated with police and he won't be charged in the accident, cops told FoxNews.com.

The vehicle of a state trooper who arrived at the accident scene was subsequently hit by a 2005 Nissan Pathfinder as the trooper was attempting to exit his car. The trooper was treated for back pain and bruises at a local hospital and the driver of the Pathfinder wasn’t issued a summons, according to Newsday.

An autopsy is set to be conducted Monday on Leith, police told FoxNews.com.

Leith’s maternal grandmother, Claire Hansen, said the family is distraught and they don’t know how to break the news to Leith’s daughter.

“How do we tell this little girl,” Hansen told Newsday. “She keeps saying, ‘Where’s Mommy? Where’s Mommy?’”

She added: “It’s just not fair sometimes. Life isn’t fair.”