Tragedy unfolded on a San Antonio highway early Thursday morning when a 19-year-old attempted to cross the traffic-swollen lanes and was struck by a vehicle. In a darkened stretch near Highway 90 and Gunsmoke Drive, emergency services rushed to the scene around 12:30 a.m. after receiving reports of a pedestrian hit on the roadway. KSAT reports that the young man, later identified as Izayah Jacob Wood, met a fate no passerby could rectify.
The San Antonio Police Department said that after the incident, the driver involved immediately stopped and called the authorities, a fact that scant consolation brings to Wood's loved ones. The emergency medical professionals pronounced Wood dead at the scene, a finality that brings pause to the morning's rush. Despite the circumstances, Fox San Antonio notes that no criminal charges were expected against the driver.
SAPD's statement provided no additional details on why Wood attempted the perilous crossing or what conditions may have led to this moment. However, the roads' dangers at such nebulous hours are less a mystery than a known terror. What stands as a highway's routine for cars and trucks becomes, for a pedestrian, an expanse fraught with risks and oblivion.
Both drivers that hit the teen stopped to assist, says the police, however, their efforts could not turn back the clock on an irreversible tragedy.
