Tag: Cross Bronx Expressway; crash; motorcycle; Joseph Ruiz

The motorcycle that a teen was riding when he was fatally struck by three vehicles and dragged a half-mile on the Cross Bronx Expressway was a graduation present to himself, his family said Friday.

Joseph Ruiz did two things after he got his diploma in June — he moved out of his parents’ Gun Hill apartment in the Bronx, and got himself a slick black bike.

Ruiz, 18, who was living in a room at an uncle’s house in New Jersey, was on his way to check in on his mom and dad Monday when three drivers — including one behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer —  hit him as he approached Jerome Ave. in Morris Heights shortly before 9:20 a.m., police said.

One of the cars dragged him about a half-mile off the expressway and onto the next exit ramp at E. 175th St. and Webster Ave., cops said.

Ruiz suffered head and body trauma and died at the scene, officials said.

“I just don’t think I have the heart to see him in a casket,” said his sister, Anastasia Ruiz, 25. “He was so young. I’m the oldest sibling. He was the baby, and he was the only boy. It’s just hurting me because now he’s gone. He’s my only brother. The only one I got.”

She said her little brother was headed for a regular check-in with their parents when tragedy struck.

“He would come twice or three times in a week, and then spend a couple of days sometimes,” she said. “It would be to help my mom do errands or go to work with my dad. He was such a good kid.”

Anastasia said riding different types of bikes was a hobby of his he picked up from his father.

“He rode regular bikes, motorcycles, dirt bikes,” she said. “He’s a person that liked to ride because it was peaceful. That’s what he would tell me. Like you know, ‘I could think. It’s just me and my music in my head. I could think straight.’”

Anastasia, a medical assistant, prefers to remember Ruiz straddled across his jet black bike, shiny black helmet, stylish black jacket. Black jeans and comfy black sneakers finished off his look.

“I remember him telling me, ‘Look sis, look at my new bike!’ He said, ‘I just bought it. It’s gas. It’s a real motorcycle.’ That was a few months ago. It was a graduation gift to himself.”

The heartbroken sister said she cannot understand how three drivers hit her brother, and only one of them stopped.

“That broke me,” she said. “He didn’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve to die in general, but he didn’t deserve that.

“There’s no way in hell that that truck driver did not feel hitting my brother. He’s big. He’s 180 pounds. Six foot tall.  The Dodge Charger, too. If the lady in the minivan felt it and stopped then there’s no way that those other two cars didn’t feel it. I’m sorry. It breaks my heart.

“All I know is as a medical assistant, I know that logically he didn’t feel pain,” she said. “It just breaks my heart to read it and to know it and to think about it. He was probably so scared.”

She said her brother was excited about the next chapter in his life.

“I just saw him like two weeks ago,” she said. “He came to visit me. I’m in college, so I was telling him about school.

“And so I asked him what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to trade school next year and pick up on a trade. He wanted to try to make video games and work on computers and programming systems.”

Ruiz had his own space at his uncle’s house — but it was like he never left home.

“Even though he moved out, he would still come and help me and my mom and my dad,” the sister said. “Run errands, check on my family. Still being responsible even when he left home. He still cared. He was so caring for others. He touched so many people.”