BRONX BICYCLE RIDER KILLED IN FREAK ACCIDENT

From: New York attorney Gary E. Rosenberg (personal injury and accident attorney and lawyer; serving Brooklyn Queens Bronx; Bronx accident lawyer)

On March 17, 2010 at 8:30 AM Megan Charlop, age 57, of the Bronx, New York, was riding her bicycle on Crotona Avenue. The driver of a parked Toyota, Min Kyung Kwan, age 66, opened his car door and knocked her in front of a BX17 New York City bus. She was sucked under the rear wheels of the bus, and was killed instantly in the accident.

Paramedics rushed to help, but the woman was declared dead at the scene.

Police issued a summons to Kwan. The bus driver was not charged.

Charlop, the director of community health at the Montefiore School Health Program, in the Bronx, was a local hero to her Bronx community. Nicknamed "Mother Teresa," she opened her home to poor and sick children from Africa and the Caribbean. At Montefiore she worked as a public health advocate in a program designed to prevent accidental lead poisoning in children.

In 1999, Charlop was awarded the national Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health and Leadership Program award for her lead poisoning prevention work at Montefiore.

At the time of her death, Charlop was riding her bicycle to visit Bronx schools to finalize a community gardening project.