family\u2019s GoFundMe page<\/a>. Officials said it happened on East Drive, near 84th Street.<\/p>\nThe crash left O\u2019Brien with \u201ca severe and devastating brain injury,\u201d according to the GoFundMe, which added that he died \u201c<\/p>\n
peacefully in the early morning hours of Sunday, September 27\u201d with his wife by his side.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough our hearts are broken by this unimaginable loss, Richie\u2019s legacy will live on. He was able to give the gift of life to others through organ donation, helping those in need even in his final moments,\u201d the post continued.<\/p>\n
By Tuesday, the NYPD Highway District\u2019s Collision Investigation Squad was still looking into the mechanics of the crash to determine how exactly the cyclist hit O\u2019Brien. Police officials said it was still unclear whether O\u2019Brien saw the bike coming, and said they did not yet have conclusive information about whether the cyclist would be charged. According to the NYPD, the cyclist stayed at the scene of the crash, and was treated for minor injuries from getting thrown onto the pavement.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien was a \u201cproud Local 638 Steamfitter\u201d who \u201cwent to work every day to provide for his family,\u201d according to the online fundraiser. He leaves behind a wife and two daughters who are 8 and 12 years old, the page continued, adding that the money would go to help the family pay their mortgage. By Tuesday morning, it had almost reached its goal of $150,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo family should have to worry about finances while facing something this heartbreaking,\u201d the organizer wrote.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien and his family live in Port Jefferson Station, according to police.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story and may be updated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A father of two who was critically injured when he was struck by a Central Park cyclist last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-359904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}