Updated Jan. 16
Conrad Hernandez cracked a joke, something about giving his extra pounds to a teeny tiny family member.
He was talking to his mother on the phone on his way home to Parrish from work, stuck in rush-hour traffic as he crawled south over the Howard Frankland Bridge. Hernandez was always cracking jokes, turning waits at the airport or nights watching âJeopardy!â into comedy routines, family and friends said.
But on that Dec. 17 day, shortly after 6 p.m., there were no more jokes.
Suddenly, Rosa Hernandez couldnât hear her son over the phone. Instead, she heard some kind of âbig noise,â she said, hard to describe even a month later.