Police were unable to identify an injured motorcyclist for days as he lay dying in a Manhattan hospital following a deadly Queens crash, leading his fiancé on a desperate search for the man she loved that ended in heartbreak.
Jian Trujillo, 38, was heading west on Grand Central Parkway approaching the 31st St. overpass in Astoria when he lost control of his 2003 Yamaha motorcycle around 8:50 a.m. on Feb. 1, cops said.
As he veered off course, Trujillo slammed into a 2022 Toyota Highlander SUV traveling in the same direction.
Trujillo was thrown from the motorcycle and onto the roadway, suffering numerous injuries, police said. Medics rushed him to Harlem Hospital, where he lingered until his death Feb. 7.
Trujillo was riding without a driver’s license at the time of the crash and police were unable to identify the wounded motorcyclist for days, forcing his fiancé, Scarlet Mercado, to piece together the mystery of her partner’s disappearance, she told the Daily News.
It took five days of calling hospitals and police stations throughout the city before officers at the 114th Precinct in Queens were finally able to connect Mercado to her fiancé two days before he died, she said.
“He was considered a John Doe for about five days,” said Mercado. “It’s heartbreaking. This is tragic. Everyone who knows him is heartbroken.”
Both Trujillo and his fiancé made careers out of helping others, with the late motorcyclist recently starting a new job working with the elderly.
“He was the greatest person ever. He lost his job as a social worker and he was starting his life over again,” said Mercado. “He was working with the elderly.”
“We built our careers together, he got me into the field.”
An avid motorcyclist, Trujillo had been riding for years and was planning to start a YouTube channel to help others maintain and ride bikes safely before his life was cut short, his fiancé said.
“He was starting a YouTube channel to teach people how to fix and ride motorcycles,” said Mercado. “He was on his way to get a haircut and he never made it.”’
“He loved to ride motorcycles. He was a real thrill seeker, but he had a lot of experience. I’m still in shock this happened to him.”
Trujillo had an 18-year-old daughter and a 10-year-old boy through a previous relationship, but he also treated Mercado’s 6-year-old son as his own, according to his grieving fiancé, who said she couldn’t bring herself to tell the boy his surrogate father had died.
“I can’t tell my six-year-old son,” said Mercado. “I can’t break his little heart.”
“We were going to get married and have kids. It would have been a beautiful thing.”