Man Who Ditched Car On BQE Tried To Save Date Who Burned Alive, Brother Says

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — The man who ditched his burning car and hailed a cab while his date burned alive had actually tried to save her first, the man's brother said in a recent interview.

"He did not just run away from the scene. He lost his phone in the car [and was] unable to call the ambulance," Waheed Ahmad, 21, told The New York Post about his brother, Saeed Ahmad, 23.

Saeed faces a number of charges, including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, in connection with the early Friday morning crash.

He was driving westbound on the BQE, near Centre Street in the Red Hook-Carroll Gardens area, around 4 a.m. Friday morningwhen he lost control of the car and slammed into a concrete barrier according to police.

The 2007 Infiniti G35 burst into flames, and Saeed ran from the scene, hailing a cab to the hospital so he could be treated for burns, police said. Harleen Grewel, 25, was found dead in the passenger seat by authorities on scene once the flames were put out, police said.

Waheed, the man's brother, said Ahmad tried to save Grewel's life.

"He tried to get her out," Waheed said, according to the Post. "That’s how his hands and his legs and his neck got burned. He couldn’t get her out. The fire got too crazy. It just burned so quick."

Waheed also told the Post that neither he nor his family can speak to Ahmad until his arraignment.

Their father told the New York Daily News that he isn't sure what happened.

"I don’t know what happened yet, I need to see him, talk to him, find out what happened," Mohammad Azam told the News.

Click here to read more from the New York Post.

Click here to read more from the New York Daily News.

Image via Joshua Longmore, Twitter used with permission