The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) announced this afternoon that an operator has died following a Saturday morning crash on Noe Street; the driver had just recently celebrated his nineteenth-anniversary working for SFMTA earlier in August.
While not much is known about the incident, SFGate and KPIX report that one Antonio Cahilig, an operator on the 24 Divisadero route, had fallen "severely ill" this morning around 5 a.m. while heading north on Noe Street. Eventually, he lost control of the vehicle and struck nearby parked cars.
**SFMTA Statement on Death of Muni Operator**
— SFMTA (@sfmta_muni) August 29, 2020
Agency grieves for colleague who died on dutyhttps://t.co/7b24poDk2V
After the crash, both news outlets say the driver was transported to San Francisco Zuckerberg General Hospital; Cahilig later died at the local hospital.
“The SFMTA family is grief-stricken at the loss of Antonio,” says Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin in a statement, adding that Cahilig had been an SFMTA operator for over ninteen years. “On behalf of all the staff at the SFMTA, I extend my deepest condolences to Antonio’s family and friends. His dedication, and that of all our customer-facing, essential workers, is the pride of our agency.”
Again: no additional information on the incident has been reported, but we'll be sure to update this piece with any new updates.
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Image via SFMTA