Fort Lauderdale — 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 Interstate 595 near the Fort Lauderdale airport early on the morning of April 9, saying she was worried about him.
“He was stuck on the side of the highway,” she told the emergency operator, in one of a series of 911 recordings released Wednesday by the Florida Highway Patrol. “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 was 24 years old, 6-foot-4 and Black.
His wife then began crying and starts praying and pleading with God.
Haskins was hit by two vehicles, not one, as had been previously reported. A dump truck hit him first, knocking him to the pavement. As he lay there, the driver of a Subaru Outback veered left to avoid hitting him but struck him with the vehicle’s right side and tires, according to a report released Wednesday by the Florida Highway Patrol.
The drivers of both vehicles pulled over. Neither has been charged. Haskins was pronounced dead at the scene at 6:48 a.m.
The first calls to 911 came moments before Haskins was struck and killed.
“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 I-595 near the 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, then in New Jersey and Maryland. Kalabrya Haskins announced an update Tuesday through Burt Lauten, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ director of communications.
It was the second public statement she made through 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 service is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
A memorial is scheduled for noon Saturday at Christ Church in Rockaway Township, N.J. 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].
