A cop fatally struck a nurse. His actions after the crash shock the victim’s

A silver Honda Accord zoomed past exit 150 on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey just before 3 a.m. The driver was an off-duty Newark police officer, Louis Santiago. His cousin Albert Guzman was in the passenger seat.

It was the night of Halloween 2021, and Santiago was drunk, according to Essex County prosecutors.

He was staring at a cellphone when his car allegedly drifted into the shoulder and struck a man who happened to be walking along the darkened stretch of highway, prosecutors say.

Santiago, 25, initially thought he may have hit an animal, according to his lawyer, Patrick Toscano Jr. The victim, Damian Dymka, 29, was still in the costume that he had worn out that night: a black mask with gold antlers and brown fur covering his shoulders.

Dymka would be pronounced dead at the scene — but not until more than two hours later.

In those two hours, Santiago drove home with Dymka’s body in the back seat and then returned to the crash site having never called 911 or attempted to render aid to the man, prosecutors say.

“Put that body back where you hit it,” Annette Santiago allegedly told her son when he showed up at their home, according to prosecutors.

He’s now facing 12 felony charges, including reckless vehicular homicide and endangering an injured victim. Guzman and Santiago’s mother were also charged with allegedly tampering with evidence and other offenses.

Dymka’s friends and family, meanwhile, are still reeling in shock and grief. Some are tormented by haunting questions.

What if the officer had immediately called 911? Could Damian have been saved?

“We can’t know that because of one person who was incredibly selfish,” said Miranda Stone, a close friend who met Dymka when they were students at Bergen Community College.

What makes the series of events so difficult to comprehend is not just the officer’s actions, his friends and loved ones said, but who Dymka was as a person.

He was kind and compassionate almost to a fault, four of them said in interviews with NBC News.

He was the one everyone turned to in times of crisis. He was the one who would drop everything to help you.

“If things were going crazy, I remember just being able to hug Damian and feeling like it’s going to be OK,” said Jess Valdanero, a longtime friend. “He wouldn’t let go until he felt like you were OK.”

It was fitting that he worked as a nurse, spending his days helping people who were elderly or infirm at a county-run facility in northern New Jersey. 

But by last fall, Dymka was ready for a change.

He had developed an itch to travel, and his boyfriend felt the same way. So they hatched a plan: They would both pursue bachelor of science degrees in order to become travel nurses, a job that would give them the freedom to move away from New Jersey and explore the U.S.

“We wanted a great way to travel the country,” said his boyfriend, Rosemberg Ochoa. “Hike national parks. Just roam around.”

Dymka was set to begin online classes on Nov. 1 — the day after the accident — but he never logged on that day. He also didn’t show up for work at the…