Tragedy struck in northwest Oklahoma City on Monday evening when a man was hit by a vehicle after getting out of his car, following a three-vehicle accident. The collision, which initially involved no injuries, escalated when a fourth vehicle attempted to navigate around the crash site, striking the individual who had stepped out to assess the situation. Authorities reported that the driver responsible for the hit-and-run then fled the scene, leaving traffic on Northwest 10th Street disrupted as they investigated the incident—and the man who was hit was transported to a hospital in serious condition, according to KOCO.
The location of this chain of events was near Northwest 10th Street and Vermont Avenue, right around 6:15 p.m. where the sequence of rear-endings took its grim turn as stated by the Oklahoma City Police Department, News 9 explained that it started as a non-injury accident until impatience apparently prompted one driver to inflict further havoc. Following the incident, the area between Northwest 10th Street and Meridian Avenue was closed to traffic, though it reopened around 7 p.m. after the emergency services had responded to the unfolding emergency.
KFOR notes that the eastbound lanes of Northwest 10th Street had to be shut down between Vermont and Meridian to accommodate the accident investigation, with significant delays being a foregone conclusion as the night’s events unfolded. Motorists were urged to seek alternative routes to avoid the congested and now chaotic corridor where the collision occurred, laying bare the fragility of routine evening commutes transformed in an instant into sites of crisis.
As investigations continue into the unfortunate series of events that left one person seriously injured, Oklahoma City Police are now tasked with piecing together the misfortune that befell a man simply attending to the wreck his vehicle fell victim to and seeking the culprit whose haste led to harm yet who drove away absent of accountability for a moment that changed the trajectory of another’s night, if not life. Anyone with information on the hit-and-run is encouraged to contact the police as this incident remains under active investigation.
