Richard Chittick and James Walton, a married couple from DC, were killed Oct. 21 after being struck by an SUV in Dewey. The driver was hospitalized, but has since been released.
Police say the driver of a Chevy Suburban blacked out after suffering a medical emergency.
The victims were on their bicycles outside the Starboard Bar and Restaurant when they were struck. They were pronounced dead at the scene.
No charges have been filed but police are still investigating and seeking to interview witnesses.
They had just celebrated their first wedding anniversary.
Chittick and Walton were avid cyclists who married about a year ago and spent time at a beach house in Rehoboth Beach.
They enjoyed riding their bicycles in Rehoboth Beach and neighboring Dewey Beach when the weather was nice.
“It’s what they always did in the afternoons,” said Thomas Vaccaro, a friend of theirs who lives in Delaware and the District. “They went out for bike rides.”
Temperatures in Dewey Beach climbed well into the 70s on Saturday, and about 5 p.m., there was still daylight left as the couple stood outside the Starboard bar and restaurant, straddling their bikes beside Coastal Highway, police said.
The vehicle that swerved off the road was a 2017 Chevrolet Suburban.
The driver, a man from New York, blacked out at the wheel, police said. Before the SUV severed a utility pole and came to a stop in the restaurant parking lot, it plowed over Chittick and Walton.
If things went down as the media is describing, then this is that rare case of an actual "accident" where no one is to blame. A similar incident happened in Virginia back in 2010 when Abdelouahid Chadli was struck on the sidewalk by a driver blacked out and crashed into him and a friend. In that case the driver died, the friend survived and the driver tested positive for PCP and marijuana.
Starboard Employees immediately came out and told people to stop taking pictures and videos, and then quickly shut down the restaurant for the rest of the evening.
For Redefer, this was the first major traffic incident since he was elected mayor a little more than a month ago. This crash seemed to be unavoidable, he said, but he also said he would like to start working with the Delaware Department of Transportation on traffic-calming measures.
“There are a lot of what-ifs,” he said.
Jim Lardear, AAA Mid-Atlantic public and government affairs director, said AAA doesn’t have specific data related to the number of deaths caused by drivers suffering a medical event, but he said he thinks it’s a very small percentage that end in the death of pedestrians. He said modern vehicle technology – vibrating seats, alarm systems – can be used to warn drivers when they begin to swerve, but he said he’s not aware of a system that takes control of a vehicle.
“Neither impairment nor distraction is believed to be a factor in the crash,”
The driver's name has not been released for some unknown reason.
“If I had run over and killed two people I think I would be reaching out to the families and I would want to be accountable in some way and I would do everything humanly possible to find out what happened and make sure it would never happen again,” Adair told the Blade.
“And I just need to know,” she said, about what really happened and why. “It’s killing us. I’m a Christian. My family, we’re Christians and we are all about forgiveness. And I’m perfectly willing to forgive him,” she said. “But I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep at night knowing that this person has just left the hospital and that’s that, you know?”
This story has been picked up by national and international news media. There's more here.
The investigation isn't over, but again taking them at their word, we probably can't prevent these kinds of crashes. But, as someone else pointed out, if we limited the size of vehicles on the road, we could make them less lethal.
Comments