Immigrant dad got lost getting home from office Christmas party, spoke with daughter minutes before death (EXCLUSIVE)

A Christmas of heartbreak awaits a Queens family after their immigrant patriarch was fatally struck by multiple drivers after getting lost walking home from a holiday office party.

Luis Leonardo Saguay, 49, was on the phone with his daughter early Sunday only minutes before he was mowed down on the Grand Central Parkway after losing his way in the middle of the night.

“He would do everything for us, my sister, my brothers and me,” his daughter Paola Saguay told the Daily News. “He was a hardworking person and a great dad. … Everybody loved him. My family is devastated right now.”

Luis Leonardo Saguay

The father of four became lost after leaving the Saturday night holiday party at trucking transport company EDCC Services Corp.’s headquarters in Maspeth, with Paola trying to get her dad reoriented in a phone call.

He split his time between a home in New Jersey and his daughter’s family’s home in Corona, where he was headed after the party.

“I asked him to send me his location,” the daughter recounted. “He just told me he was lost and he couldn’t. I said, ‘Just stay where you are’ and I did a video call. I tried to call him back, but he didn’t pick up.”

Three minutes after they spoke, the elder Saquay was fatally injured at 3:15 a.m. in an eastbound lane of the parkway just before the exit to the Long Island Expressway, police said.

The driver of an SUV that initially struck the doomed pedestrian stopped at the scene, police said — but several other vehicles ran over the injured man and drove off, leaving his mangled body behind as the daughter launched a frantic search for her dad. No one was charged in the death.

Paola Saquay jumped in her car and circled around the area, making repeated phone calls that went unanswered before heading back home.

“I looked all over the place until 5:30 a.m. and couldn’t find him,” she said, with the family notified of his death about three hours later. He left behind two daughters, ages 36 and 31, and a pair of sons ages 29 and 8.

According to the NYPD, the number of pedestrian fatalities thus far in 2022 were down from last year. Through Tuesday, the total for the current year was at 112, compared with 120 victims over the same stretch in 2021.

The victim immigrated to the New York area from his native Ecuador in 1994, working a variety of jobs over the years, from dishwasher to deliveryman to truck driver. Paola Saquay recalled how he also became a surrogate father to her cousins.

According to his daughter, he landed at his current job this past February after a decade as a driver. Despite his busy schedule, the victim always found time for his family.

“He lived in New Jersey,” said Paola Saquay. “But trust me, every weekend we would spend with him. Either he would come here or we would go there.”

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