Eight days after a one-car collision on Veterans Drive on the St. Thomas waterfront claimed two lives and left two other persons injured, another vehicle careered off the same road just two blocks away and slammed into a parked truck trailer, killing the passenger and injuring the driver.
Luis E. Encarnacion, 34, a St. Croix firefighter assigned to the Estate Richmond substation, was dead at the scene as police, an ambulance and St. Thomas Rescue personnel converged on the accident site, just east of the Frenchtown Texaco station, shortly after 4 p.m. Sunday.
Encarnacion, a Fire Service employee since 1996 and a cousin of acting fire chief Pedro Encarnacion, was said to have been en route to catch a Seaborne Seaplanes flight back to St. Croix, Radio One reported.
The red Suzuki Sidekick Sport in which he was a passenger was being driven by Pie Gilberto. Police said evidence indicated the vehicle was traveling in the southern eastbound lane of Veterans Drive at a high rate of speed when it overtook another vehicle, then veered off the road, slammed into a chain-link fence and crashed into the trailer parked on the property that once housed Community Motors.
A witness at the adjacent service station estimated the jeep was traveling at about 60 mph when it went out of control.
Encarnacion died instantly of massive head injuries, according to police. Gilberto was admitted to Roy L. Schneider Hospital and was reported in stable condition with severe facial injuries.
A release from the office of acting Police Chief Jose Garcia said that based on a Traffic Bureau investigation, Gilberto would be charged with negligent vehicular homicide.
Mel Rodgen of St. Thomas Rescue said Encarnacion was not wearing a seatbelt.
Meanwhile, according to Radio One, police have determined that the Suzuki Esteem in which driver Tisha Simon and a passenger, Monica Martin, were fatally injured eight days earlier slammed into the median of Veterans Drive and spun around before smashing into the concrete base of a utility pole alongside the Emile Griffith Ballpark.
Joint funeral services were scheduled today for Simon and Martin, both 28 and cousins.
