Veteran equipment operator is third NJ Transit employee to die of coronavirus – NJ.com

A veteran NJ Transit worker who helped maintained the rails that commuter trains travel over for close to thirty years became the agency’s third person lost to the coronavirus.

NJ Transit announced the death of Keith Cruz, 47, of Parlin, with a memorial tweet on Wednesday. He was a class II equipment operator for NJ Transit’s Infrastructure engineering department and worked at various locations on the rail system, said Nancy Snyder, an agency spokeswoman.

Cruz leaves his wife and seven children, Snyder said. His Facebook features photos of him working on various parts of the NJ Transit system and enjoying New York Islanders hockey games.

“Keith was coming up on his twenty-eighth year (with NJ Transit), he was very well liked by his co-workers,” she said. “The rail team lost a great guy.”

Cruz is the second NJ Transit employee to die from COVID-19 this week, On Monday, Gov. Phil Murphy announced the death of bus driver Philip Dover, 61, who drove various routes in Essex County for 24 years.

Veteran rail conductor Joe Hansen died from COVID-19 complications on April 7. He worked for 20 years and was a conductor on the Raritan Valley Line.

On Wednesday, the death toll from the coronavirus in New Jersey surged to at least 3,156 total fatalities — exceeding the 2,997 total number of people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — as state officials announced that total confirmed cases in the state have increased to 71,030.

Those numbers include 2,625 new positive tests and 351 new deaths in the last 24 hours.

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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips.

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