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Audio of 911 calls from Dwayne Haskins' wife and a witness at the scene of his death reveal the former Ohio State and NFL quarterback was walking on the highway to get gas before being struck by a dump struck, FOX Sports 640's Andy Slater reports.
In the record, Kalabrya Haskins tells the operator that her husband was stranded on the side of a South Florida highway and walked across to get gas, clarifying that she was at their home in Pittsburgh at the time and that her husband planned to call her back after arriving back at his car.
Kalabrya Haskins said she decided to call 911 and provide her husband's location after she was unable to get in contact with him.
“I just want somebody to go to the area to see if his car’s there, see if he’s O.K., if anything happened to him. … That’s just not like him to not call me back and for his phone to go dead. He was stranded by himself. He was walking, though,” Kalabrya Haskins said in the recording shared by Slater.
After a few moments, the operator notifies Kalabrya Haskins that there was a report of an incident on the highway in the area she described, but was unable to confirm an identity of the victim, later confirmed to be Dwayne Haskins.
A series of two other recordings shared by Slater include a distressed witness describing the scene where Haskins was struck by the truck.
“There was a man hit in front of me. I was traveling on the road, and I saw a dump truck hit the man,” the witness said.
ESPN's Adam Schefter initially reported Haskins, a decorated collegiate quarterback at Ohio State and former first-round pick, was reportedly "hit by a car in South Florida," citing Haskins' agent Cedric Saunders on April 9.
Schefter said Haskins "was training in South Florida with other Steelers" quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers "when he got hit by a vehicle."
Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Lt. Indiana Miranda confirmed Haskins was killed after being struck by a dump truck.
Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert -- who recently announced his decision to step down from his position after the 2022 NFL Draft -- confirmed the Steelers' plan to tender Haskins prior to his scheduled restricted free agency at the beginning of the offseason and prior to the team bringing in Mitchell Trubisky.
Haskins was cut by the now-Washington Commanders after being demoted for the second time during the 2020 season in December 2020, 20 months after the franchise selected the former Ohio State standout at No. 15 overall in the 2019 NFL Draft.
The former Ohio State standout signed with the Steelers in December 2020 and said he was looking to prove his love of football in 2021, playing behind veteran starting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who praised the backup for having one of the "prettiest" throwing mechanics he's ever seen.
“I was just telling [new Steelers quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan] the other day that his release and throwing motion mechanics are some of the prettiest I have ever seen,” Roethlisberger said of Haskins during offseason workouts via TribLIVE. “I told him I wish I had that. I joked that he could throw it through a car wash, and it wouldn’t get wet.”