• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print

Pedro Sosa fought on the streets in the Dominican Republic, and he fought on the streets of the Bronx when he moved there at age 10.

On Monday morning, Sosa, the 2011 National Golden Gloves champion, was fighting for his life after a car accident claimed his sister, Jeneffer Sosa, and put him in a coma.

[+] Enlarge

Kevin C. Cox/Getty ImagesPedro Sosa, fighting during August's U.S. Olympic trials, was sent flying off a 75-foot-high overpass after getting out of his car during a traffic pileup.

Sosa underwent surgery to stop bleeding in his brain at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, according to Pat Russo, who runs the Atlas Cops and Kids boxing program. Sosa trained at a Cops and Kids facility in Upper Manhattan.

"The prayers are working," Russo said. "He's out of the operating room, they're cleaning him up. He made it through."

Sosa, who came up just short of making the 2012 Olympics for the United States, was on the Cross Bronx Expressway driving with his sister at about 5:45 on Sunday morning when a pileup occurred.

They exited their car to "check on a car ahead of them," according to the Daily News. That's when another vehicle slammed into them, and sent them flying off an overpass, about 75 feet down.

They were taken to Jacobi.

Jeneffer, the mother of a toddler, died.

Pedro, the top-ranked amateur at 141 pounds, wields a dominant left hook and had been "barely clinging to life," the News reported.

The New York Post reported that Pedro's mother, Angela Escoto, was on the phone with his sister right after the siblings got into a pileup on the icy road; Jeneffer told her mom she was OK, and then the call dropped.

The vehicle struck her as she was reassuring her mother she was all right, the Post reported.

Michael Woods writes about boxing for ESPNNewYork.com and ESPN the Magazine, and is the editor of TheSweetScience.com.

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Comments0
• Email
• Print

Michael Woods

Boxing

• Archive

Michael Woods, a member of the board of the Boxing Writers Association of America, has been covering boxing since 1991. He writes about boxing for ESPN The Magazine and is the news editor for TheSweetScience.com.