A 23-year-old man was killed when a tractor-trailer struck a disabled minivan on the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge on Randall’s Island early Tuesday — a fatal collision that shut down the Manhattan-bound side of the bridge for hours, MTA police said.
Abdulmateen Fagbemi’s van broke down in a center lane on the span’s Manhattan-bound side around 3:30 a.m., cops said.
Fagbemi was standing in front of his disabled vehicle looking under the hood when the driver of a tractor-trailer rear-ended the vehicle about 15 minutes later, according to police.
The collision caused the minivan to slam into Fagbemi, who fell under the vehicle as it skidded into the next lane.
Medics rushed the victim to Lincoln Hospital, where he died about an hour later.
Fagbemi lived in Irvington, New Jersey, police said.
A preliminary investigation by MTA police, assisted by the NYPD’s Collision Investigation squad, found no criminality. The investigation remains ongoing.
All Manhattan- and Bronx-bound lanes of the RFK Bridge were closed due to the investigation until 5:21 a.m., when a single lane was intermittently opened. All lanes were reopened at 8:28 a.m.
The closures caused a massive traffic jam on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, according to a CBS News report.