UPDATE, SEPT. 13, 9:31 A.M.: The 77-year-old man killed in a freak traffic accident in Irvine Monday morning has been identified as Sung Lee. The Irvine resident was standing on Summit Road assessing the damage from a collision caused when he drove his Lexus SUV into a parked and unoccupied gardening truck when he was struck by a Volkswagen Jetta driven by a 16-year-old.
Lee, who became pinned between the Jetta and Lexus, was pronounced dead at 9:15 a.m. at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana.
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ORIGINAL POST, SEPT. 12, 2:14 P.M.: A 77-year-old man who drove his Lexus into a parked landscaping truck
was killed this morning when he was struck standing in the roadway by
the 16-year-old driver of a Volkswagen Jetta, Irvine Police says.
The dead man has not been identified pending notification of next of kin.
The
first accident involving the man's 2002 Lexus RX30 SUV and the large
but unoccupied landscaping truck happened around 7 a.m. on Summit Road
between Edgeview and View Terrace in the Turtle Rock community, reads a
statement from Irvine Police Lt. Julia Engen.
After traveling downhill and ramming the truck, the elderly driver got
out and stood in the roadway, uninjured. That's when he was struck by
the Jetta traveling in the same direction down Summit as the SUV had
been.
The victim was later taken to a local hospital, where he died from his
injuries.
Witness statements indicate the position of the sun at
that time of the morning may have blinded the drivers, but anyone with
information is encouraged to contact Irvine Police Sgt. Dennis Maisano at 949.724.7023
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.