A 911 call from the wife of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins appeared to solve the mystery of why he was walking on a busy interstate highway when he was struck and killed: He had run out of gas.
His wife Kalabrya called moments after he was killed on I-595 near Fort Lauderdale airport, saying she was worried about him.
“He was stuck on the side of the highway,” she told the 911 operator. “He had to go walk and get gas.”
She said he was going to call back after he put gas in his car, but he never called back. She wanted someone to see if he was OK.
“That’s just not like him, for him not to call me back and his phone to go dead and he’s just stranded by himself,” she said. “He was walking, though.”
“I don’t want you to panic, but I’m going to be honest with you,” the 911 operator said. “We do have an incident on the highway, but I can’t confirm if that’s your husband or not.”
The 911 operator asked for a description of Haskins and the woman explained he’s 24 years old, 6-foot-4 and Black.
His wife then began crying and starts praying and pleading with God.
The first calls to 911 came moments before Haskins was struck and killed by a truck on Interstate 595 in Fort Lauderdale.
“Oh my God! Oh my god. What the f— is wrong with you, get the f— out of the road,” one woman said, in one of several reports of a man walking into traffic or struck by a vehicle on 595 near Fort Lauderdale airport early on the morning of April 9.
The woman called back and apologized and explained a man was hit in front of her.
“I was traveling on the road, and I saw a dump truck hit the man,” she said, crying.
Haskins, 24, had been in Florida at the invitation of fellow quarterback Mitch Trubisky, who owns a home west of Boca Raton.
Another caller, a man, said there was a body on the far left lane of the road, near the shoulder.
“He was laying on the side of the road,” the caller said.
The caller said he saw a dump truck nearby and someone exiting the dump truck.
Haskins, a 2019 first-round pick by Washington out of Ohio State, played two seasons in Washington before being released and signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers in January 2021.
Funeral and memorial services for Haskins are scheduled for this week, beginning Friday in Pennsylvania followed by services in New Jersey and Maryland. Haskins’ wife, Kalabrya, announced an update Tuesday through Burt Lauten, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ director of communications.
It was the second public statement Kalabrya made Lauten and the Steelers. The first statement thanked people for their support.
Friday’s visitation is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Allegheny Center Alliance Church in Pittsburgh. The funeral service is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
A memorial is scheduled for noon Saturday at Christ Church in Rockaway Township, NJ. Haskins was born in New Jersey.
Another memorial is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sunday at Bullis School in Potomac, Md., where Haskins attended high school.
David Fleshler can be reached at [email protected] and 954-356-4535. Follow him on Twitter @DavidFleshler. Chris Perkins can be reached at [email protected].
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