‘Please come back Dad’: Cyclist killed in Fort Lauderdale drawbridge crash is mourned
After a cyclist was hit and killed by a driver on the Seventh Avenue drawbridge Thursday, his daughter poured out her anguish on social media.
“Tears are pouring down my face like the dam to my heart has been broken wide open and in its place a billion shattered pieces,” wrote Tiffany Wedzik in a Facebook post.
“Please come back Dad!”
“This wasn’t how you were supposed to go,” she added.
On Friday, Fort Lauderdale police identified the bicyclist as William Wedzik. The accident happened shortly after 7 a.m. Thursday, as first responders rushed to the drawbridge, which spans the New River near Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale.
He was declared dead on the scene.
Carolyn Larke, a friend of Wedzik, told NBC South Florida that he was a man who loved his family, his dog, and was a “great, loyal friend who would do anything to help you.”
The crash was first reported as a hit-and-run, but “the driver returned to the scene,” said Detective Ali Adamson, a Fort Lauderdale Police Department spokeswoman.
“He still left the scene,” Larke told the TV channel. “He left the guy dead on the bridge. And this isn’t something where you can say I thought I hit a dog. The dude is 6-foot-6 and 310 [pounds]. You wouldn’t miss him.”
The driver, a man, had not been arrested as of Friday morning, police said in a statement.
“The investigation remains ongoing to determine if the driver will be charged criminally or if he will be issued any traffic citations, police said.
The crash resulted in the drawbridge shutting down for about three hours Thursday.
Florida deadliest state for cyclists
Florida ranks as the deadliest state for cyclists in both absolute numbers and per capita rates, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,.
In 2021, the last year data is available, 197 people died cycling in Florida, the result of traffic crashes. That’s a rate of 0.90 deaths per 100,000 people in a state that had 21.8 million people in 2021, according to NHTSA. Most other states had cyclist death rates ranging from zero to 0.50.
California came in second with 125 cyclists killed in traffic crashes in 2021, followed by 91 cyclists’ deaths in Texas, according to NHTSA.
According to the cyclist advocacy nonprofit, the League of American Bicyclists, an average of 162 cyclists died annually nationwide between 2017 and 2021. The data used to get the group’s numbers was compiled from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Anyone with information about this crash is encouraged to contact Fort Lauderdale Police Department investigator Paul Brown at 954-828-5755.
This story was originally published February 1, 2024 at 8:55 AM.
