After slipping on hydraulic oil accidentally spilled by a truck on Northwest 13th Street on Tuesday afternoon, a Gainesville bicyclist was killed.
It was his 57th birthday.
At about 1 p.m., David P. Fitzgerald was riding north on the 1100 block of Northwest 13th Street, near Office Depot and Applebee’s, when he approached a U-Haul-type truck, GPD spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias wrote in an email.
Fitzgerald, who was traveling on the street near the curb, rode near the truck when it spilled a five-gallon bucket of hydraulic oil onto the roadway, Tobias said.
Witnesses told police that Fitzgerald rode into the liquid not knowing it was oil, causing him to slip off his bicycle and fall into the path of the large trailer attached to the back of the truck.
The truck passed Fitzgerald as he fell, but the attached trailer struck him head-on, Tobias said. After the crash, the driver of the truck stayed in an attempt to aid Fitzgerald.
In response to the crash, Gainesville Police converted the four-lane roadway into two lanes until about 3 p.m.
Fitzgerald was transported to UF Health Shands Hospital, where he died not long after the crash, Tobias said.
Fitzgerald was the second Gainesville bicyclist to be killed by fatal car crashes in the past two months, Tobias said.
On April 28, just before midnight, 44-year-old Gainesville resident Zachary William House was riding his bicycle on the same street — Northwest 13th Street — when witnesses said a BMW, which seemed to be racing another car, crashed into the bicyclist. Emergency personnel pronounced House dead on the scene, according to Alligator archives.
House was crossing the intersection at 2500 NW 13 St., less than two miles north along the same street where the truck trailer struck Fitzgerald on Tuesday.
“This instance involved such a myriad of different factors that was almost unimaginable,” Tobias said, speaking of Fitzgerald’s death. “Bicyclists choosing to ride on major roadways need to ride defensively.”
