MIAMI (NEXSTAR) — Police say a bicyclist who tried to beat a drawbridge in Miami slid to his death down the rising concrete slab.
They say 58-year-old Fred Medina’s body was found in between the section of the bridge that moves and the fixed part of the roadway.
Miami police spokeswoman Kenia Fallet says Medina was on his usual morning ride from Aventura to Key Biscayne when he tried to make it past the Miami River drawbridge Wednesday morning.
The warning arms were coming down when Medina tried to overtake the opening.
“Our friend Steve, the other guy who was there, turned back and waited, and he looked up, and Fred was on the bridge on the drawbridge section as it was going up,” Medina’s friend Stephen Tannenbaum told WSVN. “He slid down the bridge and fell in between the section of the bridge that moves and the fixed part of the roadway.”
Medina was an entertainment industry executive focused on Latin American media who had become an avid cyclist in recent years.
”Fred had an impressive track record in the world of television and media where he made his unmatched mark,” Enrique R. Martinez, chairman of LAMAC (Latin American Council for Media Advertising), told the Miami Herald in a statement. “We express our condolences to his family and friends.”
In his spare time, Medina liked to get up early to take long rides, sometimes of 80 miles and more, according to the Herald.
Police told WSVN they will review surveillance video of the incident, but Medina’s death appears to have been an accident.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.