Tragedy as heroic grandmother dies in taxi crash after wrapping her body around her grandson, 11, to protect him

A Utah woman who was taking her grandson on vacation died in a taxi crash after wrapping her body around the 11-year-old to protect him during the fatal collision on a rain-drenched New York City highway.

The impact killed Suzanne Nicholson of Ogden, Utah, and her 46-year-old cab driver Mohamed Hussain in the early hours of Saturday morning on the Long Island Expressway.

After rescue workers cut their way through the mangled wreck, they found the 60-year-old using her body to shield her grandson, Gabriel Larsen, who remains in hospital with broken ribs, a fractured collarbone, a punctured lung and a concussion, according to the New York Daily News.

'I’m still stunned,' Suzanne Nicholson's husband, Dewayne Nicholson, told the newspaper from Utah. 'I’m waiting for someone to wake me up from this bad dream.'
The taxi was taking the tourists from Kennedy Airport to Manhattan around 12.30am. Police said the cab was near 66th Street in Queens when it hit the back of a 1995 Porsche.
The cab fell onto its side and swerved from the left lane into the right lane, according to authorities, and came to a halt as a privately-owned garbage truck came along.
The truck could not stop in time and slammed into the cab. The driver was witnessed crying and shaking after the collision. No charges have been pressed against him.

The accident occurred on the rain-slicked roadways during torrential downpours.
No one in the sports car or truck was hurt. Nicholson and her grandson were rushed to nearby Elmhurst Hospital, where she was declared dead after her efforts to save Gabriel.

He remains in a stable condition despite his injuries. His prognosis 'was sounding pretty positive,' according to grandfather Dewayne Nicholson.
'The last I heard he was stable, and my daughter’s on her way there now.'

He told the New York Daily News he was awake waiting to hear from his wife upon her arrival to the Big Apple.
Instead, the man married to Nicholson of 37 years got word of the devastating news.

Suzanne Nicholson had long arranged the New York trip with her grandchild where she was to join her best friend, Irene Hacker, 59, and her grandson.
He said: 'She was planning this for three months. She was really excited.'
The New York trip was 'going to be the most awesome thing on the face of the earth,' added Hacker.
It was part of a 'dream vacation' to celebrate the two boys' success during a school competition called 'Give Me Liberty' for their knowledge of presidents, state capitals and the Gettysburg Address, the newspaper reported.
The grandmothers and the youngsters planned to visit the Statue of Liberty, the Museum of Natural History and Yankee Stadium.
Traffic clogged the area for hours as emergency crews worked to clear the scene.