Milford, CT – A stretch of Connecticut’s busiest highway became the site of tragedy once again early Thursday morning — and, true to form, it barely registered as more than a traffic delay.
Connecticut State Police have confirmed that a fatal motorcycle crash in Milford early Thursday morning went undetected for nearly half a day before emergency crews were alerted.
According to investigators, the crash occurred sometime between 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. along the I-95 North Exit 38 off-ramp. Police say the motorcyclist, identified as 31-year-old Jose Antonio Febus Rivera of Hamden, failed to navigate the curve, struck a roadside reflector and several Department of Transportation sand barrels, and ultimately landed down an embankment in a wooded area—hidden from passing motorists.
Authorities were not called to the scene until around 12:20 p.m., nearly 12 hours after the crash is believed to have occurred. Rivera was pronounced dead at the scene upon discovery.
The incident remains under investigation, and state police have not yet determined what factors may have contributed to the crash.
At approximately 12:30 a.m., a motorcyclist was killed in a single-vehicle crash on I-95 North near the Exit 38 off-ramp in Milford. According to state police, the rider veered off the roadway, slammed into a reflector post and six DOT sand barrels, then tumbled down an embankment into the woods below. Emergency crews from Milford Fire and EMS arrived quickly, but there was nothing to be done. The rider was pronounced dead at the scene — alone in the darkness, long before most of the state had woken up.
State police confirmed that the next of kin had been notified, but as of Thursday afternoon, the name of the deceased had not been released to the public.
Meanwhile, the crash shut down a stretch of I-95 North and caused a significant traffic backup — something that seemed to garner more attention online than the death itself. Commenters bemoaned the delays. Few asked about the person who died.
This is just the latest in a string of fatal crashes on I-95, a highway that has become a regular backdrop to death and devastation. The pattern is numbing: a life lost, a press release issued, the road cleared, and Connecticut moves on.
But for someone, this isn’t just another story. Someone got a knock on the door this morning that shattered their world. Someone is grieving the death of a brother, a daughter, a best friend — while the rest of us are calculating ETA updates on our GPS.
As the state logs yet another fatality on its most traveled artery, the questions go unanswered: How many more? How routine will this become before something actually changes?
For now, the only certainty is this — one more name will soon be added to the statistics, and one more family will carry the weight of a headline most people will scroll past.