Diane Schuler

Diane Schuler, 36, of West Babylon, according to published reports. The woman and all five children – including Schuler’s daughter, 2, and her nieces, ages 5, 7 and 9 – were ejected from the van onto the median, state police said. The lone survivor of the crash was the driver’s 5-year-old son, who was taken to Westchester County Medical Center in Valhalla with severe head trauma and other injuries, Hawthorne fire department chief Joseph La Grippo said.

New York State Police investigator James Boyle said the boy, who underwent surgery Sunday night, was in stable condition. No information on the boy’s condition was available early Monday. “It’s horrifying to pull up and see something like that,” La Grippo said of the accident scene. “I was at the Trade Center. This was worse”. Firefighters performed CPR on the woman and children, but were able to resuscitate only the 5-year-old boy.

The minivan went south into the northbound lanes and almost immediately veered across three lanes of traffic before crashing head-on into a Chevy Tracker carrying three men from Yonkers, State Police said. The Tracker then struck a third vehicle, a Chevy Trailblazer, Boyle said. State Police said the family had been camping in Sullivan County and was returning home in their Ford Windstar minivan when the driver mistakenly entered the Taconic State Parkway via the Pleasantville exit ramp – a ramp for northbound traffic in Briarcliff, which is about 15 miles north of New York City.