A teenager was crushed to death in a bizarre Bronx mishap when he fell off the back of a parked trailer and landed on the wheels of a moving tractor-trailer early Sunday, police said.
The 17-year-old victim had climbed on top of the unattached long-box trailer parked on E. 138th St. near Walnut Ave., a bustling industrial area of Mott Haven, when he lost his footing around 12:30 a.m., according to cops and neighbors.
Two unhitched long box trailers on E. 138th Street and Walnut Ave. in the Bronx Monday. (Theodore Parisienne/for New York Daily News)
A tractor-trailer driver was heading west on E. 138th St. when the teen — identified by police as Daniel Hernandez — landed on the moving vehicle’s rear wheels. He was squeezed between them and run over, dying at the scene, cops said.
The truck’s 42-year-old driver kept going for a few blocks before stopping at Bruckner Blvd., a police spokeswoman said. He remained on the scene afterwards and was not immediately charged.
Hernandez had been living alone on the Upper West Side since his father was hospitalized for a series of strokes two months ago, residents of his building said.
Neighbors watched over the teen while he was living by himself, with one speaking to him before Hernandez headed out the door for the last time.
“He gave me a hug,” said another neighbor, who did not want to be named. “I said to him, ‘Be careful.’”
A third neighbor, Daisy Otero, called news of the teen’s death “stomach-crunching.”
“What a horrible way to die,” Otero, 70, said Monday. “He was supposed to visit his father today.”
“He was a good boy, always with his father,” she continued. “His dad’s sun and moon, his everything, was his son.”
Neighbors said that Hernandez had posted to Instagram that he was headed to a party before he died.
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News
Copyright © 2022, New York Daily News