A 35-year-old Bronx man was struck and killed by a driver on Interstate 84 in the Hudson Valley on Saturday night while tossing a baseball with his son on the side of the road, according to State Police. A preliminary investigation revealed that the victim, Nicholas Barba, was playing catch with his son while he waited for a tow truck on the south shoulder.
State Police responded to I-84 on the west side of Exit 3E in the town of Wawayanda just after 8:00 p.m. on Saturday. According to cops, Barba stepped onto the highway just before he was struck. Police believe that the baseball landed in the center median in the midst of a game of catch. Barba crossed over the median to retrieve the ball, picked it up, and was attempting to cross back to the south shoulder when he was fatally struck in the right lane.
Barba was taken to Orange Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. Police said the driver remained on the scene, and that "no charges are expected."
Barba was a graduate of Carson Long, a military academy in Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, according to a tribute on the school's Facebook. He married his high school sweetheart, Jeanette, and had three children.
"He loved music, his Ecuadorian heritage, his NY Mets, but most importantly his family," Barba's cousin wrote on a GoFundMe page for Barba's widow and children. "He ended every conversation with me with 'I love you bro, remember family over everything.'"
