The 77-year-old Brooklyn grandfather crushed to death by his own car during a dispute over a parking space last week was a “very mild-tempered” man who wouldn’t lose his cool, his son told The Post.
Iosif Lontsman would certainly not have raised his voice at the woman in the other vehicle during the parking beef in Sheepshead Bay on Thursday because “he has too much respect” for women, his grieving son, Mark, said during an interview Tuesday.
“My dad was a very, very mild-tempered individual throughout his life,” Mark Lontsman said. “No one knows what was on his mind, what he was feeling. Just based on me knowing him, if it’s probably about parking, he would come out and talk to the lady.
“He’d do it politely — not go out in anger and fury, especially with a woman,” he said. “He has too much respect for females to go out in any kind of anger. That was never like him.”
The elder Lontsman, a doting grandfather who grew up in Kazakhstan, stepped out of his Subaru Forester to speak with the 43-year-old woman behind the wheel of a second car during a disagreement over parking at Avenue W and Ocean Avenue around 4:30 p.m., police said.
As he got out, his car, which was still in drive, hit him and pinned him between the Subaru and the woman’s Nissan Altima, according to police.
A worker at a local store said the driver of the Nissan had tears and tried to help, to no avail.
“The lady, she tried to help,” said the worker, who asked not to be identified. “She put her foot on the brake.
“She was shouting, ‘Help, please help, please help,'” she said. “He was a nice guy. It hurts. He is a human being. He had children. He had grandchildren.”
He was rushed to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where he was pronounced dead.
No charges were filed in the freak accident.
“At first I was in disbelief,” his son said. “It doesn’t hit you right away but the sorrow just builds more and more every day and then you come to the realization he’s not here.
“We are dealing with not knowing what really happened, the uncertainly of what happened makes it more difficult to deal with,” Mark Lontsman added.
Iosif Lontsman’s family roots are in the Ukraine and Belarus, but the family fled Jewish persecution and ended up in Kazakhstan, where he grew up and met his future wife, his son said.
“My mom told me she was looking for a good-looking Jewish husband who was family-oriented, determined and had the ability to build and support a family,” he said. “They were absolutely a team.
“They were a good match. They completed each other,” the son said. “When she passed, a part of him died with her. It was like half of him disappeared.”
His father migrated to the US in 1989 to build a better life for his family, and worked in construction.
He doted over his two grandchildren — a 12-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. Mark Lontsman said the two youngsters were so attached that he hasn’t had the heart to tell them yet that their grandpa is gone.
“He was helping out from the day they were born. He’d push them around in strollers. He’d take my daughter to ballet classes. He’d take my son to the playground,” he said. “When he came to see my children and he heard my son’s voice, he’d come running and hugging him.
“My son would say, ‘Hey grandpa,'” he added. “We haven’t even told them yet. They wanted to go to my dad for Passover. They asked, ‘Why didn’t we go?’ We told them grandpa wasn’t well.
“We will have to tell them soon.”
