As seen in the Washington Square News.
An NYU junior is in a coma and near death after he was struck by a car Saturday while crossing a busy Harlem intersection, law enforcement officials said.
After slipping into a coma at Harlem Hospital Center on Sunday, 20-year-old Broderick John Hehman, known as “JB” to his friends, was “brain-dead,” his father, Thomas Hehman, said at 11:21 p.m. last night.
“He’s not doing well,” his father said. “He’s not going to make it.”
He declined to comment further on his son, who is a metropolitan studies major in the College of Arts and Science.
Hehman ran into the intersection of 125th Street and Park Avenue at around 8:30 p.m. on Saturday and was struck by a silver Mercedes-Benz, which left him in critical condition, police officials said. The 38-year-old male driver was not charged with a crime.
University spokesman John Beckman said Hehman’s condition is saddening.
“This is a tragic turn of events,” Beckman said. “On behalf of the NYU community, I extend our sympathies to his family, loved ones and friends.”
Gallatin senior Paco Secada, who described himself as Hehman’s best friend, said Hehman’s condition is tragic.
“There’s nothing to say to show what he really was,” Secada said.
He added that Hehman would have been “appalled” to see his accident covered through the “badgering of family members and friends in grief.”
“To the news agencies, he was nothing but a story,” he said. “The only reason why newspapers were interested in him is because he was a white kid in Harlem from NYU.”
New York Police Department officials said they are investigating eyewitness accounts of the accident. According to the reports, Hehman was being chased by several young men before he was hit by the car.