(
)
The front-seat passenger who survived the deadly holiday crash on the Garden State Parkway blamed the tragedy on a speeding black sports car that recklessly veered in front of the ill-fated SUV and caused its driver to go flying into a guardrail.
Speaking for the first time since Monday’s horrific wreck that killed three teens and left his fiancée gravely injured, Vincent Whiteaker said that driver Dimitrios Iliopoulos, 54, began steering wildly when the Ford Expedition got cut off.
The SUV then rolled at least twice.
“I see out of the corner of my eye this black car shoot in front of us,” said Whiteaker, 25, whose fiancée was among five passengers ejected from the SUV because they were not wearing seatbelts.
“[Dimitrios] got scared and swerved left and right. Next thing I know I’m pulling myself out of the car. I didn’t feel anything,” he said. “It’s just two seconds that changed everyone’s life.”
Iliopoulos’ two sons, Chrystoph, 14, and Hlimas, 18, were killed in the crash along with their friend, Eric Colligan, 15. The driver’s wife, Stavroula, 51, and daughter, Fotiny — Whiteaker’s fiancée — were in critical condition at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune.
“I got out and she was moving,” Whiteaker said of Fotiny. “Everyone else was face down.”
Dimitrios Iliopoulos was listed in fair condition.
The Iliopoulos family and Colligan lived on the same Staten Island block.
Capt. Frank Davis, a spokesman for the State Police, said the car that cut off the SUV was a dark BMW or Mercedes.
Investigators don’t have a license-plate number, but are scouring E-ZPass records for clues, officials said.
Whiteaker said he could not believe the destruction.
“The wreckage looked like a video game,” Whiteaker said. “There was smoke everywhere. Bodies were flying out everywhere.”
Whiteaker said the mother and the daughter do not yet know about the deaths.
“My fiancée is just going to be devastated,” Whiteaker said. “She has no idea about her brothers. We keep lying to her.”
Whiteaker said Iliopoulos makes frequent trips to Atlantic City, and is a platinum member at one of the casino hotels. He was unable to get rooms for the family because of the busy holiday.
Otherwise, Whiteaker said, they would not have been on the road.