A 70-year-old Bronx man fatally struck by a speeding wrong-way hit-and-run driver was a doorman on his way to work looking forward to retiring soon.
Ismael Rodriguez was crossing Morris Park Ave. at E. Tremont Ave. in West Farms when he was hit by a driver speeding north in the southbound lane just before 6 a.m. Monday, cops said.
“He was crossing E. Tremont to get the bus to work,” said the victim’s ex-girlfriend’s sister, Kristina Quezada. “He was a very hard-working man. He was about to retire. He was really looking forward to it — but he never got to enjoy it.”
The impact sent Rodriguez flying 86 feet north into a parked vehicle, police sources said. He bounced off that vehicle, landing another 30 feet away.
The driver, who was speeding against traffic in Morris Park Ave.’s southbound lane, never stopped and drove off following the crash, police said.
“It’s not like they hit an animal or something,” said Quezada. “He was a human being. They could have stopped and helped. No one deserves to go out that way.”
Rodriguez died at the scene. The driver has not been caught.
The victim’s family were told that the vehicle that hit Rodriguez was a white Lamborghini but the NYPD said they don’t have a description of the car involved.
Quezada’s mother said she received a call from Rodriguez’s phone the morning he was killed and that she heard a woman’s voice say, “She doesn’t speak Spanish,” before the call suddenly ended.
“His phone was never recovered,” Quezada said. “Why would they keep his phone?”
Rodriguez worked at a building in Fort Lee, N.J., where Grammy Award-winning Cuban-American singer Celia Cruz lived before she died in 2003.
“He was adorable,” said Quezada’s mother, 57-year-old Lydia Rios. “Ismael was always funny. What a great sense of humor. He loved music and sports.”
“I really hope they find them,” she said of the hit-and-run driver. “Nobody deserves to die like that.”
