The freak Halloween weekend snowstorm is being blamed for the death of a sickly Bronx great granny who died when her home lost power — and her oxygen machine shut down.
Kheowla Ramprasad, 77, died around 8:45 p.m. Saturday at her Heath Ave. home, cops and relatives said.
The Guyanese matriarch suffered from a heart condition and diabetes and had gone on oxygen support two weeks ago, family said. It was unclear if there was a backup battery for her machine.
“She was a very, very good person. It’s sad that this is the way she passed away,” said daughter Shala Mahmood, 50.
“She was sick but she was doing okay. Once she couldn’t breathe, that generated all the other problems.”
Mahmood said power was off and on in the house all day Saturday and went off completely at 5 p.m. About ten minutes later, Ramprasad began struggling to breathe.
Mahmood called paramedics who came and worked on Ramprasad in the dark for two hours, but they were unable to save her.
The family — who huddled under extra blankets and kept warm by boiling water and standing near the stove — was still without power Sunday morning.
“We slept in the freezing cold. Our phones are dead. We have to call family members. Our cell phone batteries are dying,” said Mahmood.
“I’m very upset right now,” she said. “I feel frustrated. Con Edison could’ve been more sympathetic. I’ve called once, twice, three times. I’m getting the same answer.”
Mahmood’s brother Anoop Kalicharan, 57, said they were trying to make arrangements to host mourners.
“People will come here in the evening and we provide food and comfort. It will be extremely difficult for us to do it in the dark. We have no heat.”
Sixteen people were also hurt — two of them critically — in a nine-car pile-up on the icy Cross Bronx Expressway early Sunday morning.
Two women were thrown from their car and fell 50 feet from the elevated highway into a sand pit at a construction site below, witnesses said.
“She spun out, hit the wall and they must have shot out, both of them, these two ladies. The cops found them down here,” said Joe Torres, 34, who works for nearby Anthony’s Collision on Chesbrough Ave.
“Her car was demolished,” he said. “There were cars spun out everywhere up there.”
Torres said he and his work partner were sitting in their truck waiting for tow calls when he heard someone scream from inside a fenced-off construction site nearby.
“At first I thought we were going crazy,” Torres said, “Then I hear her yelling, screaming at the top of her lungs.”
Torres said he and cops from the Emergency Services Unit rushed to the site to find the women.
“Me and like six cops ran through that hole in the fence over there and then they broke this gate down,” he said.
“The ESU guys ran down the hill and there (were) two ladies laying there on the floor…One looked like she was (conscious), the other one didn’t, she wasn’t moving.
“It was awful,” he said. “I felt so bad for them… she was yelling at the top of her lungs.”
The two women were in critical condition Sunday morning at Jacobi Hospital.
City parks reopened Sunday morning after being closed overnight because of danger from falling tree limbs.
Parks officials said they received 1,000 calls to 311 overnight about downed trees and branches.
Power was out at 8015 homes in the city as of Sunday morning, with another 66,218 homes dark in Westchester, according to ConEd.
With Rocco Parascandola
