Family: Woman killed in hit-run in Levittown was on phone with mom

An Adelphi University honors student’s last words were to her mother — moments before she was fatally struck in Levittown by a hit-and-run driver, her family said Friday.

The 18-year-old woman — identified as Taranjit Parmar — stepped out of her sport utility vehicle following a minor accident Thursday evening and was run over by the other driver and left for dead, Nassau County police said.

The victim had called her mother after the accident and was approaching the other motorist when she was struck, according to her father, Ranjit Parmar, 50, of Levittown.

“While she was on the phone, she heard my daughter say, ‘Oh no, stop!’ ” Parmar said. “Then my wife said the phone got disconnected. She kept saying, ‘Are you OK? Are you OK?’ ”

Police are searching for the suspect and have urged any witnesses to come forward and anonymously call Nassau County Crime Stoppers at 800-244-8477.

“This was a fender bender. This was a minor auto accident and an 18-year-old girl lost her life,” Nassau police spokesman Det. Vincent Garcia said Friday afternoon.

“Five o’clock on a Thursday, on Hempstead Turnpike in Levittown,” Garcia said. “That’s bumper-to-bumper traffic. People saw this.”

Taranjit was driving east in a 2018 Jeep at about 5 p.m. when she collided with a pickup truck attempting to enter eastbound traffic near Gardiners Avenue, police said, citing security camera footage.

Both drivers pulled over in front of a gas station and Taranjit got out of her SUV. Police said she was struck by the red pickup as the driver fled the scene.

Ranjit Parmar said his daughter was on her way home from Adelphi, where she was part of the honors dental program. He told his wife to drive to the university to make sure nothing was wrong.

As her mother drove past the accident scene, she saw Taranjit’s Jeep on the side of the road and knew something had happened.

Taranjit was taken to Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow where she died of severe head injuries hours later, Parmar said.

“Every day she would ask me, ‘How’s your day?’ Never ever she was mad at anybody,” Parmar said as he choked back tears. “She was the foundation of the family. Not my wife, not me. That was her.”

Taranjit, the oldest of three daughters, had talked about becoming a dentist ever since she was in high school, Parmar said. She was in her second year as part of Adelphi’s joint degree program and was slated to study four years at New York University’s College of Dentistry.

“Our thoughts are with her family and friends at this time,” Adelphi said in a statement.

Staff at the university’s Student Counseling Center and the Center for Psychological Services “are available to provide services and support,” Adelphi said.

Taranjit, who already started working at a dental office close to home, had hoped to one day open her own practice.

“She was the all-around perfect girl,” Parmar said. “She’s my older daughter, so she was like a mother to my younger daughters. She wanted to see her sisters do their work.”