A Brooklyn tragedy
Nurse cycling home dies in crash with biker
A devoted Brooklyn nurse who survived months on the COVID-19 frontlines died in a Saturday morning wreck with a motorcycle while bicycling home from an overnight hospital shift, police and witnesses said.
Both the 31-year-old bike rider and the motorcyclist were sent flying through the air after the fatal 7:30 a.m. collision in Sunset Park.
The bicyclist was pronounced dead at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn — where she just finished a long night's work, according to friends.
A fellow NYU Langone nurse on her way home saw the wreckage and stopped in a desperate attempt to resuscitate her mortally injured colleague.
“We ran to check to see if she had a pulse, and when she didn't, we started chest compressions,” said the nurse, declining to give her name.
The beloved bicyclist, a South Korean immigrant, was pedaling east along 56th St. when she was struck by the 29-year-old motorcyclist heading north on Third Ave., cops said.
“She took this job to help more underserved areas,” said another heartbroken coworker, standing outside the hospital with friends. “She was checking in on us when she was the one doing the overnight shifts. I can tell you she was a really amazing person.”
The biker, headed to a Breast Cancer Awareness Month motorcycle rally when the collision occurred, was in critical but stable condition, police said. No charges were immediately filed in the deadly wreck.
The woman, who was not identified by police pending family notification, just moved in with her boyfriend, said a friend who grew up with the victim's beau.
“She was on the frontlines of COVID, right when it started,” the friend said.
With the mangled remains of both bikes still on the pavement, hundreds of motorcyclists and ATV riders partticipating in a ride against breast cancer rolled past the crash site Saturday morning.
The motorcyclist was headed to the nearby headquarters of the Foreva in Racinng Mode club to help set up the annual ride from Brooklyyn to Manhattan.
“They're [doctors] very limited to what they 're telling us,” a club member told the Daily News.
“He's not doing too good. I know his mother's not taking itt too well. His family is takinng it hard, he's our family ttoo. We would be there right nnow if it weren't for this (event).”
But the dead victim's friends had little sympathy for the bikers.
“You're standing here and you see people drive their motorcycles like a—holes here,” said one woman. “It's just ridiculous.”