Man in wheelchair dies in South Boston crash involving cement truck, police say

A man in a wheelchair died Tuesday after being struck by a cement truck in South Boston, according to police. 

State Police troopers responded to the area of Frontage Road and Traveler Street at around 10:10 a.m. The response was to handle “a crash involving a cement truck and a pedestrian in a wheelchair,” officials said in a statement. 

The pedestrian was only identified as a 57-year-old Boston man. Officials said he “was determined to be deceased on scene.” An investigation is ongoing. 

At around noon, a section of Traveler Street that runs underneath I-93 was taped off and surrounded by about a dozen emergency vehicles, The Boston Globe reported. Workers could be seen loading a Boston Sand & Gravel cement truck onto a tow truck. 

The truck involved was a 2020 Mack Granite cement truck owned by Boston Sand & Gravel, State Police said in a release. A 53-year-old Medford man was behind the wheel at the time of the crash. He was transported to a local hospital with “possible minor injuries.” No charges had been sought by law enforcement as of mid-afternoon Tuesday.

A Globe reporter observed a folded wheelchair behind the truck, along with two shopping bags and a stack of white sheets that appeared to be dotted with blood. Officers were seen gathering those materials, along with a gray shoe found in the next lane over, and loading them into a MassDOT pickup truck.

By 12:20 p.m., the cement truck had been hauled away and Boston Fire Department crews were hosing down the street. The scene was cleared by about 12:40 p.m., police said.

“Sometimes on my way home, I don’t know how to cross,” Dexin Ma, a University of Massachusetts Boston student who frequently crosses the area, told the Globe. 

The crash comes just over a week after 4-year-old Gracie Gancheva was fatally struck by a pickup truck at the intersection of Congress and Sleeper streets near the Boston Children’s Museum. The museum later called for safety upgrades to the intersection, and city officials said they are working to improve the area.