A beloved NYC rabbi suffered a broken leg after being struck by a speeding e-bike driver on the Upper East Side, causing him to undergo major surgery and even learn to walk again.
Rabbi Michael Miller, 75, was coming home from a Jewish heritage celebration Downtown on the afternoon of May 21 when the harrowing incident occurred. Miller, who had the right of way, had just come out of the number 6 train station at 77th Street and Lexington Avenue when he was violently struck.
Miller was attempting to cross Third Avenue when the bike rider ambushed him seemingly out of nowhere the rabbi described, causing him to immediately fall onto the pavement.
“I went to cross Third Avenue to head to my apartment, I have the light and I had just stepped into the bike lane and I was just…assaulted by an e-bike. I crumpled down to the ground. It all happened in moments. It was very evident that my right leg was broken,” the rabbi, who has been an NYPD clergy liaison for more than 30 years, explained.
The driver of the bike stopped to check on Miller, but immediately sped off after just a few seconds, Miller said.
A caring onlooker rushed to Miller’s aid.
“An angel of a woman ran over to me, said her name was Mara and that she saw what happened,” Miller recounted. “She said, ‘I called 911. An ambulance is on the way.’”
An FDNY ambulance and NYPD officers arrived almost immediately, Miller told amNewYork Metro. An NYPD Community Affairs detective also assisted him during the horrifying ordeal.
The NYPD said so far no arrests have been made, but the investigation remains ongoing.
EMS rushed Miller to Weill Cornell Hospital, where doctors had to perform a three-hour surgery to fuse a titanium rod and screws into the larger bone — the tibia —- of his lower right leg.
Miller is still in a rehab center and is doing physical therapy daily to learn to walk again with a metal rod in his limb.
He considers himself lucky to be alive, but also expressed tremendous concern for others who have experienced severe injury or have been killed by e-bike riders.
As he continues to recover, Miller is advocating for the state and city to do more to protect pedestrians from illegal e-bikes, the drivers of which so often do not follow the rules of the road.
“The central issue is there are no laws on the books in the state of New York regarding e-bikes,” he said.
He wants e-bike drivers to be accountable when they break the law.
“It’s why I am now on a crusade to enact laws in the state of New York — which is where the laws need to be enacted — that e-bikes and similar electric vehicles be accountable — registered, licensed, insured,” he said.
In the meantime, Miller is continuing his road to recovery. He remains hopeful about his recovery and the future of e-bike laws in the city and state.
“I am hopeful on many fronts,” he said. “I’m hopeful of course for my own recovery but I’m hopeful, as a rabbi I’m also prayer hopeful that the laws that need to be passed to protect innocent pedestrians in the city of New York and the state of New York are enacted by our state legislature and signed by our governor and put to work in order to ensure that no one has to go through what I went through.”
