NYC BMW driver in fatal Belt Parkway crash was swerving to avoid motorcyclist, friend says

The young BMW driver who died in a fiery car crash along with one of his passengers, on the Belt Parkway was swerving to avoid a motorcyclist when he bumped into another car and lost control, the sister of one of the surviving passengers said.

Noah “Nova” Thompson, 24, died along with one of his four passengers, 22-year-old Jewel Perez, after he hit the center median of the parkway near the Cross Bay Blvd. exit in Howard Beach about 6 a.m. Saturday. The BMW vaulted into oncoming traffic and burst into flames.

One of Thompson’s best friends was riding shotgun while Perez sat behind Thompson in the backseat. Malcolm, another close friend of Thompson’s, was also in the backseat, with Malcom’s girlfriend.

“When Noah was trying to switch lanes a motorcycle was inching up so he had to double swerve to another lane and hit the back of another car. They went airborne and into the barrier,” said Amaniya Aiken, whose brother Malcolm miraculously survived the wreck and recounted the chaotic chain of events.

Nobody inside the BMW was wearing seatbelts, according to cops.

“Noah, Jewel and [the front passenger] flew out of the car (through the windshield). Jewel was already dead when she flew out the car. Noah was unconscious and [the front passenger] was in the grass not knowing what was going on.”

After slamming into the divider, the BMW rocketed in the air and landed on the other side of the highway, where it struck two more vehicles, a Honda CR-V and a red Hyundai, going the opposite direction, cops said. The BMW caught fire from the impact.

“My brother and his girlfriend were asleep,” Aiken, 24, said of the moments before the crash. “So when they woke up, they were like ‘Woah.’ They were in the middle of the street and the car was on fire. They had to go out the (shattered front windshield) too.”

Police sources said none of Thompson’s four passengers had been drinking before the wreck. Cops were working to get a warrant to test Thompson’s blood for alcohol but he died before that happened.

It is not clear where the group was headed when they crashed but Aiken said they had all been at Perez’s daughter’s 4th birthday party on Friday evening before deciding to go out. Perez lived on the Upper East Side while Thompson lived in Jamaica.

“Around 2:30 a.m. (Saturday), they left from there and [Perez] wanted to go with them. She was with her family all day so she was like, ‘I want some me time, I want to go hang out too,’” Aiken said.

Aiken had “thought nothing” of a Citizens app alert about the crash she saw on Saturday morning until her older brother called her with the news their sibling was involved.

Unaware of anyone’s condition, Aiken raced to Brookdale University Hospital, where she learned her brother made it out alive but with serious neck injuries.

Aiken was stunned to find their friend Thompson, who initially survived, in critical condition, unrecognizable as he who lay unconscious in an ICU bed.

“He looked so swollen I couldn’t even stomach it. He was in really bad shape. I literally was shedding tears talking to him,” Aiken said. “He’s a small guy you know, to see somebody so swollen was like… Even now I can’t even go to sleep because I saw him like that.”

“I can’t eat. I can’t stomach anything,” she added. “It’s been a hard couple of days.

Aiken takes some comfort Thompson was killed doing something he loved — driving his luxury car.

“If anybody knew him, Nova loves his cars,” Aiken said, adding that he also owned a Honda. “He treated all his cars like luxury cars.”

Thompson had bought his prized white BMW just in the last year, Aiken said.

Aiken’s brother Malcolm, 25, and his girlfriend face a months-long road to recovery.

“[They] broke bones in their necks. They both had four screws and a bar put in their neck,” Aiken said of the couple. “[My brother] can’t turn his head left or right and he can’t (move his head) up and down at the moment.”

Malcolm’s girlfriend also broke her pelvis, Aiken said.

The 25-yar-old front-seat passenger, who survived crashing through the windshield of the moving car, broke both his arms and one leg. He needed a skin graft on his leg, according to Aiken.

Aiken described, Thompson, her brother and front-seat survivor as longtime friends she likened to “The Three Musketeers.”.

Aiken remembered Thompson as a lively jokester.

“He was really happy, outgoing. Always smiling. He could light up a room for real,” she said. “He didn’t argue with people unless you were his friend and that’s how you know Noah’s your friend.”

A GoFundMe created by Thompson’s sister memorializes him as a “truly a genuine, loving, outgoing, special soul.”

In a separate GoFundMe, Perez’s brother describes the death of the mother of two children, ages 3 and 1, an “unimaginable loss.”

“Jewel was a loving, energetic mother who dreamed of entering the medical field so she could help others,” her brother Khaseim Perez told the Daily News.

On Tuesday, the victims’ friends welcomed the powerful thunderstorm that slammed the city.

“Thank God it rained,” Aiken said. “We have this thing that when somebody passes away and it rains, it means they made it to heaven. Boy was it a big storm yesterday. There was a big dark cloud over Queens.”