Ruben Bain Jr. was behind the wheel in a fatal Miami traffic crash in the early hours of 17 March 2024, when his car hit another vehicle on Interstate 95 and then slammed into concrete barriers on both sides of the highway. One of the four passengers in the car, Destiny Betts, a 22-year-old college student from Georgia visiting for spring break, was pulled from the scene with incapacitating injuries and rushed to the Ryder Trauma Center.
Betts never regained consciousness. She died on 13 June 2024 after spending almost three months in a coma, while a second passenger was hospitalized with injuries and two other University of Miami players, Wesley Bissainthe and Nyjalik Kelly, were also in the vehicle. Bain was cited for careless driving after the crash, and the police report said he operated his vehicle in a careless or negligent manner.
The collision happened at about 4 am, when Bain, then a sophomore at the University of Miami, was driving on Interstate 95 in Miami. After the vehicle struck another car, it hit the east concrete wall and was redirected into the west concrete wall before being towed because of disabling damage. No field sobriety test was administered at the scene, and the careless-driving charge was dismissed approximately two weeks before Betts died.
Betts' family described her as “a smart, caring young woman working towards her college degree” and said the financial burden on her father had become overwhelming because he had to miss work to stay by her side in Miami. The crash has stayed alive in part because Bain was again cited for careless driving in 2025, only for that case to be dismissed because of a defective citation.
Multiple league sources said they were aware of the incident and were still looking into it, with one saying, “It feels like it could be [Laremy Tunsil] all over again,” and another adding, “It doesn’t feel like [Bain] has been transparent with us.” A team executive said, “We are concerned about multiple incidents,” while another added, “We are waiting for the other shoe.” Bain, who currently sits seventh on the Consensus Big Board and is viewed as a projected top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, did not respond to a request for comment. What happens next is whether teams decide the crash history is a draft issue or a warning sign they cannot ignore.
