Relatives of delivery cyclist Ivan Morales, who died on Monday after being killed by a driver on a Bronx street, are so desperate to raise money to bury the Mexican-born worker that they have been passing the hat at the crash site — and telling the story of a hard-working 24-year-old who always sent money home.
Morales died from “severe head and bodily” injuries sustained after he was hit by the 62-year-old driver of a 2013 Lexus on Friday night at Willis Avenue and E. 138th Street, as Streetsblog reported.
On Thursday, Morales's cousin, Salvador Vazquez, was at the corner trying to raise $8,000 to send the body back to Guerrero state in Mexico.
According to Vazquez, Morales moved to New York in 2016, searching for an opportunity to provide for his mother who stayed behind. He landed a job at Wimpy’s, a hamburger and pizza restaurant in East Harlem, where he worked long hours delivering food, said Vazquez.
“He came here to work to make money for his mother. He doesn’t have a family except for his mother,” Vazquez said in front of a makeshift vigil.
The risky job took on additional dangers when the coronavirus engulfed the city in early March, killing a disproportionate amount of working class black and Latino New Yorkers. But it wasn’t the deadly virus that killed him — it was a luxury car on Friday, his day off from delivering food to hungry cooped up residents.
The incident comes 16 months after a Bronx resident was mowed down by a hit-and-run sanitation truck driver at the same intersection. Last year, 22 other crashes occurred, injuring two pedestrians and nine motorists.
“People just run lights over here sometimes,” said a resident who only wanted to be identified as Al. (Officially, cops have not said who ran the red light in the fatal crash.)
Vazquez will return to the deadly intersection today to raise more money for the funeral.
