Former Israeli tennis star killed in bicycle accident

An Israeli man living in Brooklyn died after his bicycle collided with a bus in New York City on Monday morning.

Dan Hanegby, 36, originally from Tel Aviv, was killed when he swerved around a stationary car and went under a bus traveling in the same direction.

“They were very close, the bus and him… unfortunately he lost his balance and went under,” Luichys Caba, an eyewitness, told the New York Post.

The married father of two, who worked as a director of investment banking at Credit Suisse, was rushed by emergency services to Bellevue Hospital Center where he was pronounced dead.

He was also an accomplished tennis player. When he was 16 he was the top-ranked tennis player in Israel, according to the Brown Daily Herald, a position he held until he joined the army at 18.

Although top athletes are able to apply for a lighter army service so they can continue training, Hanegby instead gave up tennis and signed up for the special forces.

“There were a lot of suicide bombings,” Hanegby told the Herald in 2006. “Every week we had something. There isn’t a person in Israel who doesn’t know someone who died in a bombing. So I wanted to do something for my country.”

He had no regrets about his decision. “No tennis win can compare to that feeling of knowing you helped to stop the next suicide bomber. I would definitely do it again,” he said.

After his army service, Hanegby moved to the US, where he took up tennis again, playing first for Binghamton University and then at Brown, rising to become the 66th best player in the country.

He was riding a bicycle from the New York’s Citi Bike, the largest bike-share program in the US.

Citi Bike said he was the first rider fatality in more than 43 million trips since the program began in 2013.

“Together with the City of New York, we wish to express our heartfelt condolences to the rider’s family and loved ones on this terrible tragedy,” Citi Bike spokeswoman Dani Simons said in a statement.