NEW YORK (WABC) -- Authorities say a livery cab driver was killed early Saturday when his vehicle slammed into a flatbed truck in the Bronx.
Just before 2 a.m., the Toyota Camry TLC livery vehicle travelling west on the Cross Bronx Expressway near Castle Hill Avenue smashed into the rear of a flatbed truck that was parked in the left lane of the roadway.
The operator of the flatbed was in the process of removing a broken down vehicle there when struck.
The 45-year-old driver of the TLC vehicle was pronounced dead at the scene. He has been identified as Leonel Paulino.
A 27-year-old female passenger in the vehicle was seriously injured and taken to St Barnabas Hospital where she is said to be in stable condition.
Speed is believed to have been a factor in the accident, police said.
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A livery cabbie died early Saturday after he slammed his car into a stopped tow truck on a Bronx highway, cops said.
His 27-year-old backseat passenger miraculously escaped with only minor injuries.
Leonel Paulino, 45, was speeding west on the Cross Bronx Expressway when he plowed into the back of the idling flatbed tow truck near Castle Hill Ave. about 1:50 a.m., police sources said.
The tow truck driver was helping a stranded motorist with a broken-down car, cops said.
Paulino suffered a massive head wound and died at the scene. Medics rushed his fare — a Yonkers woman identified as Amber Normington — to St. Barnabas Hospital.
“No major injuries, nothing broken, which is a major thing,” her sister Kirstie Normington said.
Amber Normington’s police officer fiancé Rudolph Rosado added that “she’s doing fine and should be okay.”
Normington told her sisters she somehow ended up on the ground outside of the vehicle.
“She doesn’t know how she got out of the car,” Jacquie Normington said. “We’re just piecing it together based on what we’re seeing online.”
The driver of the tow truck and the person he was helping were unharmed, police said.
Cops put up portable NYPD barricades around the mangled livery car as they conducted their investigation.
Police sources said that, based on the force of the impact, speed played a factor in the smashup. The Toyota Camry’s front end was obliterated.
A spokesman for the Taxi & Limousine Commission confirmed that Paulino drove for the ride-hail app Uber, but it wasn’t clear if he was working for the company at the time of the crash. Uber was investigating the incident Saturday.