A 23-year-old New Jersey man died early Tuesday after a tractor-trailer slammed into his disabled minivan on the Manhattan-bound side of the RFK Bridge, pinning him against the vehicle as he tried to figure out what had gone wrong under the hood. Abdulmateen A. Fagbemi had pulled over around 3:30 a.m. when his minivan broke down, stepping out to pop the hood and inspect the engine before the crash killed him roughly 16 minutes later.
According to PIX11, the tractor-trailer struck Fagbemi’s minivan from behind and pushed it into him while he was standing in front of the open hood, according to police. FDNY and EMS crews rushed him to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:42 a.m. Police have attributed the account of his death to the MTA Police Department.
The crash forced officials to close all lanes of the bridge in both directions, snarling early-morning traffic in and out of Manhattan. Officials began intermittently reopening a single lane at 5:21 a.m. before all lanes were finally back open at 8:28 a.m., roughly five hours after the collision.
Investigation Still Open, No Summonses Issued
Investigators reviewed video footage from the scene and found no signs of criminal activity, the same PIX11 report notes, though the police investigation remains ongoing. No summonses had been issued as of the report, and officials were still working to determine how fast the tractor-trailer was traveling at the moment of impact…