PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A motorist, apparently rushing to a Philadelphia hospital to see his injured father, ran a red light, was hit by an SUV and crashed into a utility pole, resulting in the deaths of his two passengers, authorities say.
The 18-year-old driver, who was not identified, also was injured in the Friday morning crash and treated for minor injuries, as was the unnamed driver of the sport utility vehicle, police said.
The two killed were identified by authorities as 17-year-old Maggie Lynn Goloff and 19-year-old Osman Zeylnov.
Police said the motorist was apparently rushing to Temple Medical Center to see his father who, hours earlier, had been robbed and assaulted while making a food delivery. The 48-year-old father was delivering pizza to an address in the Nicetown neighborhood of northwest Philadelphia shortly before midnight Thursday when he was flagged down by two men who said they had ordered the food, police said.
One man threatened him with a gun and demanded the food and his belongings and, during a struggle for the gun, the victim was struck on the side of the head with the gun before the suspects fled as a police car drove down the street, police said.
Friends of the crash victims mourned their loss.
"Just a beautiful person inside and out," Jamie O'Connor, a friend of Goloff's, told news reporters. "She always had everybody's back, even if they were in the wrong situation."
Another friend, Hayley Visalli, said Goloff "was gonna graduate, she couldn't wait to get a car, she couldn't wait to get her own place, she just got a new kitten."
Hassan Yaghnam, a friend and co-worker of Zeylnov's, said Zeylnov was a hard worker who had just gone back to school to get an education.
"He's a really good person, and he got a good heart," Yaghnam said. "And his parents raised him right. That's the best person you could find, he's one in a million."
