Review of fatal accident in hands of County Attorney driver ‘didn’t see’ woman with cart

Sierra Vista Herald ^ | Terri Jo Neff

[SandRat]

SIERRA VISTA – Police officials have completed an investigation into the death of Susan Dunbar, who was run over by a pickup truck in the Fry’s Food parking lot Dec. 28.

“The case was sent to the Cochise County Attorney’s Office on Monday for review of whether the driver is charged,” said Sgt. Brian Sebastian of Sierra Vista Police Department (SVPD).

County attorney Brian McIntyre confirmed his office has the file and that it will be given priority because it involves a death investigation.

“As for a timeline, I cannot provide one as there are many factors that can affect that,” he said.

On Wednesday, the department released a redacted version of the accident report that reveals the driver was a 38-year-old career military member assigned to Fort Huachuca.

According to the report, the driver consented to a breathalyzer test that came back as .000 and allowed inspection of the truck, a Nissan Titan, without a search warrant. He also provided a written statement and participated in follow-up questioning, as did his daughter who was in the passenger seat.

The Herald/Review is not publishing the man’s name as he hasn’t been charged or cited.

According to reports, Det. John Papatrefon of SVPD said the 71-year-old Bisbee woman was pushing a cart toward her car after leaving the grocery store around 1:30 p.m. She was struck by the front driver’s side of the truck and fell to the ground after which the rear driver’s side tire ran over her chest and head. The Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner noted the cause of death as blunt force injuries.

Surveillance video provided by Fry’s confirmed the driver’s account and that moments before the accident, the truck was northbound in the roadway in front of the store. The driver stopped to allow several people to walk from the parking lot into the store before he turned left, westbound, into a parking aisle.

The video also shows Dunbar was struck as the truck began the turn, which also matches the statement by the only known eyewitness.

Investigation

The report reveals Papatrefon, one of the department’s certified collision reconstructionists, looked closely at why the driver didn’t see Dunbar pushing her cart along the driver’s side of the truck.

A number of measurements and photographs were taken at the scene and of the truck, which has large off-road tires and was outfitted with a lift kit. It also has a large sideview mirror on the driver’s side and a front support pillar on the driver’s side.

“I measured from the ground to the front of the hood and it measured 4 feet 9 inches,” wrote Papatrefon. “From the ground to the top of his driver’s side mirror measured 5 feet 5 inches.”

Dunbar stood at 5 feet 3 inches.

Although the investigation didn’t find a definitive reason why the driver failed to see Dunbar walking in the parking aisle, Papatrefon believes a phenomenon known as inattentional blindness — also known as perceptual blindness — may have been involved. The driver was concentrating on people in the crosswalk, he wrote, so the driver’s brain may not have processed the fact there was someone or something near the truck.

“It is important to understand we see with our brains, not with our eyes,” he noted in his report. “When we are thoroughly engaged in the visual processing of one event, other important events, most especially unexpected events, may go completely unnoticed, even though the images of those other events appear on the retinas of the eyes.”

[Hot Tabasco]

I’m anal about that stuff in lots.

I hate parking in supermarket lots, I don't know how many times I've almost been hit while backing out of a spot, continuously looking left then right then left then whoa! some knuckle head just sped thru.......

At my local Meijers, I come in via the back of the building and park in the far perimeter aisles now.....