GILROY
– The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a reward of up
to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of
someone who allegedly pulled a hit-and-run on a letter carrier’s
vehicle July 7.
GILROY – The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of someone who allegedly pulled a hit-and-run on a letter carrier’s vehicle July 7.
Gilroy Postmaster Penny Yates announced the reward Wednesday. It originated from the Postal Inspection Service’s San Francisco office.
Meanwhile, rural carrier Mary Bermudez, 58, of Gilroy, has been upgraded to fair and stable condition and moved from Stanford Hospital’s intensive care unit to a regular room, a hospital official said Thursday. Doctors were able to avoid amputating her badly damaged right arm.
When a fellow postal worker visited Bermudez Wednesday evening at the hospital, she was still in critical condition, under constant sedation and unable to communicate, according to Yates. She had been in that condition since a helicopter delivered her to Stanford from the accident scene on U.S. 101, just south of the Monterey Street exit.
Although Bermudez was “in and out” of consciousness at the scene of the accident that morning, Bermudez managed to tell emergency workers that another vehicle hit hers, causing her to lose control and go into a roll, according to the California Highway Patrol.
So far, the CHP has reported that none of the three interviewed witnesses saw any other vehicle hit Bermudez’s 1998 Jeep Cherokee, which she was using for her rounds. Nevertheless, investigating officer David Agredano noted that there is a dent in the rear of the Jeep that could have come either from another vehicle or from the rollover.
Yates said she has seen the dent and thinks it definitely came from another vehicle.
“It’s very strange that you have a dent in the center of the bumper, … and then on either side of the dent you have a foot of (undented) bumper,” she said.
Family members, friends and the Postal Service are hoping more witnesses to the accident will call the CHP and/or the Postal Inspection Service so the true cause of the wreck can be known.
Bermudez’s rural route includes Pacheco Pass Highway and 101 south to state Highway 25.
“She never made it to her first stop,” Yates said of the day of the wreck. “She had just left the post office.”
Bermudez’s Jeep was equipped with steering on the right side to facilitate mail delivery, an option Jeep once offered only to rural letter carriers, Yates said.
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the CHP at 848-2324 as well as postal inspector Judy McDermott at (415) 778-5900, a 24-hour number.
Peter Crowley covers public safety for The Dispatch. You can reach him at pc******@************ch.com or 847-7109.
