Young woman indicted for reckless homicide over Negev car crash that killed baby

A woman was indicted on Thursday on charges of reckless homicide and drunk driving for causing the death of an infant in a car crash last month.

Yana Bloom crashed her vehicle into an oncoming car at the southern Negev Junction on Route 40 on Independence Day.

Ten-month-old Maayan Domanovich was killed and his parents and three siblings were injured.

According to the indictment, Bloom, a 25-year-old resident of Rishon Lezion, took a cannabis-type drug and drove to the desert for a party where she was working, the evening before the crash.

Bloom’s driving license had expired in 2022 and she did not have valid insurance.

The day after the party she drank alcohol before getting into her car.

Yana Bloom (Screenshot via Channel 12)

Prosecutors said Bloom began to drive in an uncontrolled manner, swerving into oncoming traffic and causing the crash.

According to witness testimonies, around six vehicles had to pull over to avoid a head-on collision with Bloom’s vehicle. She overtook one vehicle in a way that caused the driver to swerve off the road.

Elia Domanovich, Maayan’s father, noticed Bloom’s car driving erratically toward them from the opposite direction and tried to swerve to avoid the vehicle, but Bloom crashed into them.

Bloom was hospitalized at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba due to injuries she sustained in the crash, where she was kept under police guard.

Bloom has claimed she does not recollect the accident and denies having been under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Police say a blood test has indicated otherwise.

The infant’s father and brother were critically injured in the crash. His mother and two other siblings were hospitalized with moderate injuries.

Three of the injured were trapped inside the vehicles until firefighters rescued them.

The mother requested that the organs of her infant son be donated.

The scene of a fatal car crash on Route 40 at the Negev Junction, April 26, 2023. (MDA)

In an interview last year with the Kan public broadcaster, Bloom spoke of the pain of the loss of her father, who was killed in a terror attack at the Dolphinarium nightclub in Tel Aviv in 2001.

She was two years old when her 25-year-old father Jan was killed in the attack. The family had recently immigrated from Ukraine and he worked as a security guard at the nightclub while studying Hebrew during the day.

“When I was little, it was very difficult for me when children said the word ‘father,'” Bloom said.

“I didn’t go to the Memorial Day ceremonies at school. As soon as they started the ceremony, my tears started to flow so I stopped going,” Bloom said.

Memorial Day is marked the day before Independence Day.