In the days since 32-year-old Richard Oates slipped from his skateboard in what authorities believe to have been a fatal "skitching" accident, the Brooklyn father of two has been remembered by friends, family and colleagues as a talented chef and businessman committed to his wife and young children.

"Richard was an amazing father and husband. He touched the lives of many people with his contagious smile and his sense of humor," his widow Marisa Kompar told us this morning via text message.

Oates's sister-in-law Alicia Kompar added that the love between her sister and Richard was palpable. "He wrote letters to my sister all of the time," she wrote. "You could really see the love he had for her. We really can't imagine our lives without him."

He was "stubbornly selfless," added his brother Dan in an e-mail to the NY Times.

Oates attended the French Culinary Institute before serving as chef de cuisine at both Freemans on the Lower East Side and the Left Bank in the West Village. But he left the restaurant business over a year ago, to open East River Skate Shop in Greenpoint with his wife Marisa, a school teacher. The couple has two children—Finnegan, 4, and Theodore, 10 months.

The skate shop, Oates explained, was a venture that he hoped would allow for more family time. "I spent the past decade working in kitchens, and I'm taking a hiatus from it. We just had a baby, and we have a three-and-a-half year old, so I wanted to be available as a father," he said in a promotional video for the shop published over the summer.

"He was extremely kind, generous and was pursuing his dream of owning his own skate shop," wrote the blog NY Skateboarding. "He'd put in hard work the past few months trying to make his shop on Greenpoint Ave. a success and was starting to get more involved in the skateboarding community."

"He was such a kind, humble, carrying, enthusiastic, funny person," eulogized Femme Skate, a collective of female skaters in NYC.

Oates was riding his skateboard on Tuesday afternoon, gripping the passenger side of a green Mack truck as the driver headed west on Delancey, according to a preliminary NYPD investigation. Shortly after 1:15 p.m., Oates fell off of his skateboard and was run over by the truck's rear passenger-side wheels. EMS responded to the corner of Norfolk Street and transported Oates to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

One witness told DNAInfo that the driver did not immediately stop when Oates was struck. "It appeared like the guy in the... truck didn't know he hit him," the witness said. However, a spokesperson from the NYPD later stated that the driver remained on the scene.

The driver of the truck, whose name has not been released, was not charged. According to New York State vehicle and traffic law, "No person riding upon any bicycle, coaster, in-line skates, roller skates, skate board, sled, or toy vehicle shall attach the same or himself or herself to any vehicle being operated upon a roadway."

Richard Naviasky, a 15-year veteran of the FDNY, was on his way to work on Tuesday when he witnessed Oates's fall. "He lost control and went under the truck," Naviasky wrote in an open letter published Friday in the Daily News.

"Life can be so fleeting," he added. "Just a happy guy in a happy life until one dangerous move he'd probably done a hundred times before."

Naviasky also expressed his gratitude for a woman who rushed to Oates's aid on the street.

"There was a lady holding his head stabilized, comforting him, praying for him... I never asked her if she was ok and I regret that so much. She was a wonderful person, giving him comfort if he could hear her, comfort if he could feel her hands. I believe he could."

A GoFundMe page launched in Oates' honor has raised $33,869 of its $35,000 goal as of this writing. All proceeds will go to his wife and children.