St. Croix firefighter Luis E. Encarnacion was killed instantly Sunday afternoon on St. Thomas when the jeep in which he was riding careered off Veterans Drive on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront, ploughed through a chain-link fence and smashed into a parked truck trailer.
The driver of the red Suzuki Sidekick Sport, Pie Gilberto, was hospitalized with severe facial injuries.
The accident came eight days after another one-car collision on the same roadway just two blocks away claimed two lives and left two other persons injured.
Encarnacion, 34, a 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.
A Fire Service employee since 1996 and a cousin of acting fire chief Pedro Encarnacion, he was said to have been en route to catch a Seaborne Seaplanes flight back to St. Croix, Radio One reported.
Police said evidence indicated the Suzuki was traveling in the southern eastbound lane of Veterans Drive at a high rate of speed when it overtook another vehicle, then went out of control and crashed into the trailer parked on the property that once housed Community Motors. A witness at the adjacent service station estimated the jeep had been traveling at about 60 mph.
Encarnacion died instantly of massive head injuries, according to police. Gilberto was admitted to Roy L. Schneider Hospital and was reported in stable condition. 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 for Simon and Martin, both 28 and cousins, today.
