A 49-year-old Tampa woman waiting at a bus stop was killed when a car went airborne off a culvert and slammed into her, and Florida Highway Patrol troopers say the driver was impaired at the time. Benny Bruce Wallace, 33, now faces a DUI manslaughter charge in connection with the crash near the intersection of North 56th Street and Pitch Pine Circle in Hillsborough County.
According to Florida Highway Patrol, Wallace was driving a Chevrolet sedan southbound on North 56th Street toward Sligh Avenue around 7:40 p.m. when he lost control of the car near Pitch Pine Circle. As reported by WTSP, the car veered onto the shoulder, collided with a culvert and went airborne before coming down at a bus stop on the northwest corner of the intersection.
That is where troopers say the car struck the 49-year-old woman, who was standing at the bus stop. Per the same account, the vehicle kept moving after the impact and hit a second car, a Toyota sedan, that was stopped on Pitch Pine Circle at the intersection. That Toyota was being driven by a 42-year-old Tampa man, according to Tampa Bay 28.
Woman Died After Being Rushed to the Hospital
The woman suffered serious injuries and was rushed to an area hospital, where she was later pronounced dead, FHP said. Troopers determined that Wallace appeared to be impaired after the crash, the station's report states.
Jail records cited by WTSP say Wallace refused to take a breathalyzer test and was booked into the Orient Road Jail. He is currently being held without bond, the outlet reported, and faces a DUI manslaughter charge stemming from the crash.
A Second Deadly Crash on the Same Stretch of Road
This is not the first fatal crash reported on North 56th Street. Back in June 2020, a 44-year-old Tampa woman died following a separate crash at North 56th and Diana streets, according to Patch. In that earlier incident, a northbound car rotated on impact, crashed through a pedestrian handrail and landed in a drainage culvert, killing a passenger in that vehicle while its driver suffered serious injuries and the other driver involved suffered minor injuries, Patch reported. The two crashes are separate incidents with different vehicles, ages and circumstances, though both occurred along the same Hillsborough County corridor.
