Kin of 2nd woman who died amid 2010 blizzard loses suit over slow rescue

Kin of 2nd woman who died amid 2010 blizzard loses suit over slow rescue

Hazel Robinson's family lost their suit claiming the 74-year-old died because of the city's inadequate response to her emergency during the blizzard of 2010.

A wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of an elderly Queens woman â€" who died after a calamitous two-hour effort to reach a hospital after the 2010 blizzard â€" has been iced.

A Queens Supreme Court judge ruled last week the city wasn’t at fault for the mother of five’s death â€" granting it “governmental immunity” for its much-maligned plowing effort that left hundreds of vehicles stuck in the streets for days after the storm, blocking emergency vehicles.

The ruling doesn’t bode well for at least one other lawsuit filed against the city in Manhattan over an eerily similar death that happened one day earlier.

Two days after the monster snowstorm on Dec. 26, 2010, Hazel Robinson, 74, was watching television at her daughter’s house in Jamaica when she suddenly lost consciousness, the family says in court papers.

With the streets still barricaded by vehicles and the 911 lines jammed up, it took just over two hours before Robinson reached a hospital, court papers say .

Already “out of breath and exhausted” by the time they reached her house, medics were forced to shovel snow as they carried Robinson on a gurney to the ambulance, parked blocks away because her street was impassable. She was pronounced dead 20 minutes after she was wheeled into the emergency room at Jamaica Hospital.

“I did everything I could,” said daughter Winsome Powell, a registered nurse, who performed CPR on her mother for more than an hour as the family struggled to get through to 911 operators, then waited for help to arrive.

“If the response had been faster, my mother would still be alive,” Powell told the Daily News.

In 2011, the family filed a federal lawsuit against the city, charging the “unplowed and impassable condition of the city’s streets” led to Robinson’s death.

That suit was dismissed due to a technicality, so the family filed a new lawsuit in state court in October.

RELATED: KATHLEEN THOMAS DIES DURING BLIZZARD OF 2010 

The city countered it has “governmental immunity” regarding how it assigns its snowplows, comparing it with how it deploys police and firefighters.

In a ruling issued last week, Queen Supreme Court Justice Kevin Kerrigan agreed, and dismissed the suit.

“It is clear that the city’s decision as to when to plow the streets was clearly a discretionary decision,” wrote Kerrigan.

Powell called the decision an “insult,” and said her lawyers will appeal. “My mother was a wonderful person who did not deserve to die the way she did,” she said.

The family of Kathleen Thomas â€" a woman who died in the snow a day before Robinson, as she waited more than two hours for an ambulance to reach her on the lower East Side â€" received a similarly icy response from the city when they sued. That suit is still pending in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Powell said she was saddened to hear about Thomas’ case. “But I’m not surprised. The city’s response was terrible. I’m not surprised there are others.”