BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL | Early Sunday afternoon around 2:30, the Fire Department received 9-1-1 calls about a pickup truck that had crashed onto a traffic island, through a bike lane and then onto the sidewalk at Eighth Avenue at 29th Street.
Stunned passersby watched as a firefighter climbed into the cab of the charcoal-colored Dodge Ram 4×4 and spent several minutes performing chest compressions on the driver, who was unresponsive.
As a firefighter continued pumping the man’s chest, the driver was placed onto a gurney and rushed to Lenox Health Greenwich Village. Later Sunday afternoon, a Police Department spokesperson said the driver, 48, had died. There was no immediate cause of death reported. Police did not release the man’s name or place of residence.
A day after this article’s initial publication, the New York Post identified the driver as Del Caraballo, a veteran Yonkers police detective.
A Fire Department spokesperson said the pickup truck was involved in a collision with another vehicle. There were no reports of any pedestrian or bike injuries.
The truck crashed onto the sidewalk on the west side of Eighth Avenue, just across the street from the north end of the Penn South Co-op middle-income housing complex.
The driver probably died suddenly and then crashed.