Catskills Accident Claims 3 From Crown Heights Family

The lone survivor of a crash in upstate Monticello that killed three members of a Lubavitcher family has returned to her home in Brooklyn.
Rachel Leah Scheinfeld, 10, received only minor injuries when a car driven by her grandfather was run over by a tractor trailer on Route 17B. The grandfather, Isaac Scheinfeld, 65, was killed, as was his daughter, Bella Raksin, 44, who was Rachel’s aunt. Scheinfeld’s wife, Rose, 62, died at the scene.
Rachel, 10, a student at Bais Rivka, a Crown Heights girls yeshiva, was hospitalized briefly at Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris after she was pulled from the wreckage.
"She was terribly traumatized, but she’s doing OK," said Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, a friend of the family.
The accident occurred around noon July 9 as the Scheinfeldís Nissan Maxima was en route to visit relatives in White Lake. A car described by witnesses as a white Buick, possibly with Florida license plates and driven by an older man, veered onto the highway from a parking lot, causing Scheinfeld to swerve into oncoming traffic, where his car was struck by a Kemach kosher foods truck. The truck driver and a passenger were treated for minor injuries. The driver of the white car was being sought by police as part of the investigation.
Scheinfeld was a jeweler. Raksin was a preschool teacher at Yeshiva Oholei Torah in Crown Heights. Rose Scheinfeld was a homemaker.
"They were very well respected," said Rabbi Goldstein. "This is a terrible loss." The victims were buried last week at Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens.