Saddest News Ever- The Man Who Dresses As Batman To Visit Sick Kids In The Hospital Has Died

WaPo - The Route 29 Batman, whose roadside encounter with Montgomery County police three years ago made him a viral sensation around the world, has died.

Lenny B. Robinson, the Maryland man who drove a bat mobile and dressed as Batman to visit sick children in hospitals, was apparently struck by a car on I-70 in Sunday night near Hagerstown after his batmobile broke down.

I introduced Batman to the world in 2012, after he was pulled over in Silver Spring in his black Lamborghini and full super hero costume on his way to visit sick children. Batman, I wrote, was a dear family friend of ours. His devastated parents called our family to tell us the news Monday morning. 

We are all crushed. 

Batman, who lived outside of Baltimore, had cleaned up in the cleaning business, making enough money to buy his own batmobile, a costume that seemed more real than the one in the movies, and toys and memorabilia that he handed out to children with cancer at hospitals all over Maryland and the District.

On one visit I made with him to Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, he said: “We’re lucky.” There were kids with tubes in their noses, with IVs in their arms.

Batman made those kids smile. He made my kids smile at family gatherings. He made so many kids smile, thousands. They all thought he was Batman, a hero. He was.

Legitimately crushed by this. Nicest dude in the world. Got rich and then spent his life dressing up as Batman to make little kids in the hospital happy. Didn’t do it for publicity or anything like that- the first time he was ever in the news was when he was pulled over and the Post wrote a story about him in 2012. Just super, super sad that he’s died. All he did was make other people’s lives better. Life can be so cruel. RIP Batman.