A male pedestrian is in critical but stable condition after
being hit by a driver who left the scene of the accident.
GILROY
A male pedestrian is in critical but stable condition after being hit by a driver who left the scene of the accident.
Hundreds of people crammed the lawns of Church Street houses north of First Street after a car traveling southbound struck the man crossing the middle of the street at 7:41 p.m. Wednesday. The impact knocked the victim to the pavement, where he got caught under the wheels and tumbled for at least 30 feet, witnesses said. As of Thursday evening, police had not identified the man, who suffered multiple life-threatening injuries.
The car – which police believe is a midnight blue Volkswagen Jetta or Golf with noticeable front-end damage – hesitated for a moment, then took off southbound, witnesses said.
“I think he feared what he did and he ran away,” said Yvette Garcia, who was in the car in front of the Volkswagen sedan, pulling into her apartment complex at 8061 Church St. when the incident occurred.
Police did not release a suspect description, but were looking for matching cars late into the night. The driver is wanted for felony hit and run – which could result in four years imprisonment and a $10,000 fine – and could face vehicular manslaughter if the victim dies. If the driver was intoxicated at the time, the driver would get five years added on to his or her sentence.
When asked to describe the sound of the crash, Garcia just shook her head and shoved her hands together, fingers enmeshed with each other. Other area residents originally thought two cars collided. One person had believed someone fired a gun.
The victim lay in the middle of the southbound lane of Church Street, said Ricardo Bernado, who was sitting on a stairwell in his 8170 Church Street apartment complex when the incident happened. Two cars following the sedan swerved out of the way of the victim, then stopped to help, Garcia said. Area residents jumped out into the street to direct traffic.
By the time police arrived and closed Church Street from Gurries Drive to Howson Street about 8 p.m., the victim was still on the ground, a trail of blood several feet long on the pavement. The man’s sneakers lay 50 feet apart and a red plastic shopping bag slumped next to the victim. The man was airlifted to an area trauma center about 8:30 p.m. by a helicopter that landed and took off from the sports field of nearby St. Mary School.
The smell of sulfur from road flares burned until after midnight while police surveyed the crime scene. Beside the shoes and bag, what looked like shattered plastic lay across the pavement and police marked a silver hood ornament from a Volkswagen with a cone.
Witnesses said the man was crossing the street eastbound in the middle of the block, where there was no crosswalk. Speeding drivers have haunted the area, lit at intervals by fluorescent orange streetlights for years, area residents said.
“They’ll be going 45, 50 mph just like it’s nothing,” said Nancy Caspary, who has lived at 8601 Church St. for 20 years.
By the time she went back to her house, clutching her 8-year-old daughter next to her hip, Caspary had already turned the accident into a traffic safety lesson.
“This is why you have to be so careful,” she said.
