A 57-year-old city Department of Transportation worker was struck and killed on the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx on Wednesday after a driver lost control of his car, police said.
George Staab, a DOT electrician from Long Island who was assigned to the Bridge Repair Unit, was hit while he was working near the southbound Exit 4N at about 10:30 a.m., according to the NYPD and DOT.
Staab and a colleague had just pulled onto the shoulder of the road and gotten out of their vehicle to perform “routine maintenance” on the parkway bridge when he was hit by the 62-year-old driver who lost control of his 2012 Subaru, DOT and NYPD officials said.
Staab was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
“George was a valuable member of a bridges division that is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of nearly 800 city-owned bridges,” a DOT spokesman said in an emailed statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are of course with George’s wife Tara, their children, and his entire family. Our thoughts are also with our grieving colleagues in Bridges, who were stunned today by the loss of a truly beloved colleague.”
The Subaru ended up in an embankment down the parkway, according to the DOT. The driver remained at the scene, police said.
“This is such a sudden and horrible tragedy,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters at an unrelated news conference Wednesday.
The mayor called Staab a “hardworking man” who had been with the department since 2014.
