MTA Bus Driver Kills Senior in Midtown; NYPD, Media Blame Deceased Victim

An MTA bus driver killed a senior in Midtown this morning.

At around 9:40 a.m. Rochel Wahrman, 69, was crossing W. 57th Street between Broadway and Eighth Avenue south to north when the driver of a westbound X5 hit her with the left side of the bus, according to reports.

From the Daily News:

The fatally injured woman was on her knees, leaning up against the bus, in the moments following the crash, witnesses said.

She had her head bowed down… she wasn’t moving,” said Shams Sheikh, 56, manager of a nearby newsstand. “The medics came right away.”

Wahrman died at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

West 57th Street is four lanes, two in each direction, at the site of the crash. Photos of the scene show the bus stopped in the inside westbound lane. If Wahrman was crossing south to north, she would have walked across two lanes, approaching the middle of the street from the bus driver’s left, before she was hit.

DNAinfo and JP Updates cited police sources who said Wahrman was jaywalking and that the bus driver had the right of way. There were no reports of how fast the driver was going, or how he failed to see Wahrman in the street.

NYPD told JP Updates “no criminal activity was suspected” and “police are not expecting to file any charges.”

Wahrman was at least the second person struck by an express bus driver in Midtown in eight days. On August 12, a BxM9 driver seriously injured a man with a cane on Fifth Avenue at 56th Street. The MTA and DNAinfo blamed the victim.