Bronx hit-and-run victim was motorman in fatal 1991 subway derailment

FORDHAM (WABC) -- Police in the Bronx are searching for a hit-and-run driver who critically injured a man Thursday night.

Robert E. Ray, 61, was struck while crossing the street just after 9 p.m. on Grand Concourse in the Fordham section.

The vehicle, described as a gray Hyundai Sonata or gray Toyota Camry, fled northbound and then turned onto East 182nd Street.

Police are looking at surveillance video in the area in an effort to find the driver.

Video obtained by Eyewitness News shows the victim in a striped shirt, stumbling over to Grand Concourse. He slowly crosses against the light, and as the cars start moving, he stops on a traffic island. He waits for a few seconds and then suddenly decides to cross, right into an oncoming car.

Local residents say the scene is all too familiar.

"Right here, this is a bad streak," resident Kowan Turner said. "It's a lot of hits that happen here all the time. People don't pay attention. They cross when it's green, so that's what happened."

Ray is in critical condition at St. Barnabas Hospital, being treated for serious head trauma and a broken left leg.

He is the motorman who derailed a No. 4 subway train at the Union Square station in 1991, killing five people. He was convicted of manslaughter and served at least 10 years of a 15-year sentence. He had admitted to drinking heavily before the derailment, and he fled after the crash.

In recent years, it is believed he was living in a shelter.