Family 'Angry' N.J. Man Killed In 287 Car Wreck, Still Waiting For Him To Come Home

Ravi Naik was just getting out to check his car.

The 23-year-old had graduated from Rutgers University several months ago. He had a job already. His career was moving along.

Then he struck a cattle trailer on I-287 on Saturday. Still, he was OK.

Then he went out to check his car. He wanted to see his car, and he wanted to know if the trailer was damaged.

Now he’s dead.

“He was just standing on the sideline when this happened,” Naik’s uncle, Tushar Desai, told PIX11. “That kind of makes you angry.”

A van carrying 13 people plowed into the Hillsborough man’s car and the cattle trailer stopped on the shoulder of Route 287 south in Bernards Township, killing three - including Naik - and injuring 12.

Naik had struck a cattle trailer, and went out to check for damage. That’s when a driver, Xu Feng Ma, allegedly drove his Ford passenger van into Naik, who was outside his vehicle. The van then crashed into a center median, police said.

“I think that I’ve lost my son today,” Nina Kadakia, a family-friend of Naik, told PIX11.

Naik’s mother was not holding up well, the report said:

The family said Naik’s mother refuses to believe he is gone. She is still waiting for her son to come home.

Naik was working in the marketing analytics department of R/GA in New York, a leading digital agency, according to his Linkedin profile. He had been accumulating experience “working for a global Fortune 15 technology client, developing strategical insights and recommendations based on statistical data analysis.”

He had a deep passion for his work, saying his background showed “a fundamental understanding of coding, physics, chemistry, circuits, stochastic processes, as well as an overall ability think dynamically and troubleshoot problems with efficiency.”

>>Related:

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• UPDATE: Videos Show Where 3 Died In Major I-287 Cattle Truck Crash

Even as his career showed so much promise, however, he always chose his family and friends first.

On Saturday, Naik was on his way home from mentoring another first-generation Indian man. A cousin told PIX11 that he “spent his free time, his weekend, to visit a youth in the neighborhood.”

Dharmin Desai and Naik went to Hillsborough High School together, with Naik graduating in 2010. In the years following, Naik made sure they stayed in contact, Desai told nj.com.

Desai said Naik cared first about his family, and “the way he would structure his career was something that would give back to his parents....The biggest thing that comes to my mind when I think of him is him being family-oriented.”

He even had a job offer in North Carolina, but because his grandfather was going through a bad health condition, he decided to stay in New Jersey, according to PIX11.