Thomas MacMillan Photo
A woman was hit by a white Ford pickup while crossing Elm Street Thursday afternoon.
The woman suffered minor injuries, said downtown Officer Matt Wynne, who was the first responder to the scene.
The incident happened shortly before 1 p.m. at the corner of Elm and Orange streets.
Chris McCormack (pictured in the driver’s seat), a Branford mechanic, was driving the truck. Here’s what he said happened:
McCormack was headed south on Orange Street. He had finished up some banking and was headed back to work. He stopped at the light at Elm Street. When his light turned green, McCormack began to turn left, while looking right to make sure no driver was running the red light on Elm. McCormack turned his head back and saw that he was about to hit a woman crossing Elm Street, walking south.
He slammed on the brakes, but hit the woman nonetheless. “I tapped her,” McCormack said.
When he realized he’d hit someone, his first thought was: “Oh my god. Did that really just happen?” McCormack said.
“I feel terrible.”
Wynne, who had been a short distance away on Elm Street, immediately responded, as did Joe Mirrione, a lawyer who had been on the sidewalk and saw the accident. Mirrione (at left in photo above) comforted the woman who sat in the crosswalk, crying and visibly upset.
Mirrione said McCormack took the turn pretty quickly. When he hit the woman, “it kicked her legs out and she fell hard,” Mirrione said.
Mirrione and McCormack said that the woman said she had recently had back surgery and was on her way to Sarah Aldrich Pilates, at the southeast corner of Elm and Orange, for therapy.
“There should be a walk signal,” said McCormack. The corner of Elm and Orange has marked crosswalks, but no crosswalk signals; pedestrians simply cross when there’s a break in traffic.
“People walk without looking,” McCormack said. Every other downtown intersection has pedestrian crossing signals, he said. “This is one of the busiest intersections downtown.”
The woman was taken away in an ambulance.
""People walk without looking," McCormack said."
They do. I imagine if you investigated scientifically, you would find that people 'walk without looking' at about the same rate they 'drive without looking'. The difference is only one of those activities represents a substantial danger to others and therefore carries a correspondingly greater responsibility to exercise care.