Downtown Eugene's DANGER ZONE.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

If Susan Wehner isn't careful, her mind reels with what-ifs.

What if on that rainy October night, Wehner and her partner of 13 years, Lucy Lahr, had stayed in the hospital at Lahr's mother's bedside another 10 minutes?

What if they weren't immersed in conversation about Lahr's mother's brush with death and had stayed a second longer on the curb - even though the walk signal was lit and they had the rightofway - allowing the beat-up pickup truck to pass them by?

What if the crosswalk were better lit, and the driver had seen the women in front of his hood through the condensation on his windshield?

"If there was more light on that corner, that could have saved our lives because it was dingy dark. It was an ugly night," Wehner said in a recent interview. "I know it would have helped."

Wehner would take any path away from that awful moment at 7:45 p.m. on Oct. 18 when she and Lahr were run down in the crosswalk on the southwest corner of the Sacred Heart Medical Center campus in Eugene, at the intersection of Hilyard Street and East 13th Avenue.

She's hard pressed to escape the memory. "It will never leave my mind," she said. "I saw her get dragged up the road under" the truck.

Inside the emergency room, Wehner, also hit by the truck, admonished doctors and nurses not to tell her what had happened to Lahr until a friend was present to help her. Her friend, Mary Fey, arrived and broke the news that Lucy had died.

"Directly after that, I heard the body bag getting zipped up," she said. Wehner tried to plug her ears but found she couldn't move because of the tubes in her arms. "I said, `Mary, put your fingers in my ears right now."

Notorious intersection

No doubt Robert Thomas Berryhill, a troubled, homeless man was responsible for the crash. Forty-two days later, a judge sent him to prison for 31/2 years for striking Wehner and Lahr, and then driving away from the scene. His excuse was a broken windshield and a malfunctioning defroster. He said he couldn't see them.

But employees at the hospital and nearby businesses have long been nervous about the intersection, which is busy throughout the evening hours with walkers and vehicles. The Oct. 18 tragedy was just one of a series of incidents there. Employees who pass through there regularly wonder if something more couldn't be done.

"It's just a really bad intersection," said Mike Baker, assistant manager at Napoli Restaurant & Bakery on the southwest corner. "At night - especially when it's raining - it's really bad. You can't hardly see anything. You can't see lines on the road or anything."

On average, 18,127 vehicles flow through that intersection in a day, according to city traffic counts.

Drivers unfamiliar with the area don't know which way to go, said Deanna Stevens, a hospital employee, who was struck by a car in 2002 in the same crosswalk. "They're thinking: `Here I am in this confusing part of downtown and I'm trying to get to the hospital, and there it is, but where do I park?"

Drivers don't know what lane they are supposed to be in, said Kristine Gorzny, who struck two women on a nearby sidewalk in 1997 when her foot slipped off the brake while making the turn. "It is like having a pedestrian walk on the freeway," she said. "The odds of somebody getting hurt there are very high. It's just bound to happen eventually."

Eight pedestrians have been struck in six wrecks at that intersection over the past decade, public records show.

Four were struck in or near the crosswalk by drivers making a left turn just as Berryhill did when he hit Lahr and Wehner.

"It's a scary spot actually," said Debbie Lund, a nurse who was struck at the intersection with another woman in 1997. "You have a lot of people who don't understand the intersection very well."

Suggested fixes

Besides Lahr's death, the toll suffered by pedestrians has included severely mangled legs, damaged knees that required repeated surgeries, a broken leg that knocked a woman out of work for three months, and a broken foot.

Sacred Heart is asking the city's traffic department to consider changes to make the intersection safer, said Philip Farrington, the hospital's planning director.

People who've experienced close calls or injuries at the intersection offer many ideas for improvement.

Gorzny said drivers unfamiliar with the intersection get confused about what lane they should be in to either swing north on Hilyard or continue east toward the University of Oregon. Installing flashing red lights to stop the traffic might help, she said.

"That would really slow people down and give them time to think," Gorzny said.

She also would like to see a skybridge to the employee parking garage on the southwest corner of the intersection, over Napoli's restaurant. There's no bridge now, so anyone who parks in the structure has to walk across the streets.

Some people bound for the hospital - or leaving a worrisome situation there - are likely distracted, said Deanna Stevens, a hospital employee, who was struck in a crosswalk in 2002 by a driver who was hurrying to see her boyfriend who had been in a motorcycle crash.

Pedestrians are also preoccupied, meaning they may pay less attention to traffic.

Stevens favors changing the intersection to exclusive pedestrian phasing. "Let pedestrians cross and then cars go," she said.

Some cities - including Oakland, Baltimore and Toronto - have experimented with what engineers dub "scramble" intersections.

Pedestrians on all corners are stopped to allow cars exclusive passage; then cars on all approaches are stopped to allow pedestrians to walk all at once, during which they can use crosswalks or stroll diagonally across.

"The city needs to come up with the appropriate solution, whether it's signage, lighting, street lighting, traffic signals or some combination," said Farrington, the hospital official. "We're going to strongly encourage that for the benefit of our patients and employees."

But the city's traffic engineer, Tom Larsen, said he has studied the intersection, reviewed some pedestrian collisions there, and knows of nothing more to do.

"We already have the signals. We already have the crosswalks. We already have the walk lights," he said.

Distracted drivers are the most common cause of the crashes at the intersection, he said. "It's more of an education issue at that point than an engineering issue."

City Councilor Andrea Ortiz works as a clerk in the emergency room within feet of where Wehner and Lahr were struck.

"I've almost gotten hit a couple times myself walking to and from my car," Ortiz said. "It's high on my list of places that could use some extra attention."

Farrington said he's never felt comfortable in that crosswalk, and has avoided it. He said he'll use the hospital's e-mail newsletter and new employee orientation to suggest that Sacred Heart workers to do the same.

A long, painful road

Months after the crash, Wehner is still looking for her equanimity. She eats when she can and sleeps when she can, usually two hours at a time.

"I'm angry all the time. I'm so much out of my character right now. It took so much from me," she said.

Wehner sees a counselor. She goes to physical therapy three times a week. She's on her feet now and hoping to get clearance from the doctor to get back to work at least part time.

She's a general contractor and owner of Susan's Mobile Tool Box. She's still got contracts to fulfill. "A lot of them are waiting for my services, which is incredible," she said.

Her days are occupied with the bureaucratic aftermath of Lahr's death.

The house they shared is in probate court, and it's not automatic that Wehner will be able to keep it, even though the pair married once and entered into civil unions whenever it was possible under evolving Oregon law.

The official correspondence that arrives nowadays upsets her.

"The beginning of all those papers is `Lucy Lahr, deceased.' I try to cover it up and go around it. It's horrifying. It really is."

DEADLY INTERSECTION

Over the past 11 years, eight pedestrians have been struck at the 13th and Hilyard intersection where Lucy Lahr was hit last year. The intersection is at the southwest corner of the Sacred Heard Medical Center,near the emergency room. Here's a summary:

Dec. 3, 1997: At 10 p.m., a 44-year-old driver swung wide when turning onto northbound Hilyard Street from eastbound 13th Avenue. The car went onto the sidewalk in front of the hospital and struck a nurse and phlebotomist. The driver told police her foot slipped off the brake. The pedestrians both suffered knee injuries but said they were lucky because a tree stopped the car's forward progress. The driver wasn't cited.

April 29, 1998: At 10:03 a.m., a 23-year-old driver was turning onto Hilyard Street from 13th Avenue when she struck a college student in the crosswalk. The student fell, and the car rolled over and broke her right foot. The driver was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian at a traffic signal.

August 4, 2000: At 4:59 p.m., a 25-year-old driver was crossing 13th Avenue on Hilyard Street when she struck a 15-year-old boy who, witnesses said, dashed across the street in the crosswalk but against the light. The boy tumbled up onto the car's hood and smashed against its windshield, a witness said. The driver was distraught. She was not cited.

Jan. 24, 2002: At 7:46 p.m., a 21-year-old driver swung into a business parking lot and struck a woman standing in the lot and knocked her to the ground. The driver wasn't cited.

Dec. 17, 2002: At 5:35 p.m., a 41-year-old driver was turning onto northbound Hilyard Street when she struck a woman in the crosswalk. The driver was cited for failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk with a traffic signal. The impact broke the pedestrian's leg and she couldn't work a full schedule for three months.

Oct. 18, 2007: At 7:45 p.m., a driver made a left turn onto northbound Hilyard Streetand hit two women in the crosswalk. One was injured, and the other was dragged under the truck and died. When police found the driver, he said he had been unable to see because his windshield was leaky and his defroster was defective. He pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide, felony hit and run, and driving while suspended. He was sentenced to 31/2 years in prison.

Source: Eugene Police Department, collision witnesses

PEDESTRIAN SCRAMBLE 

See Tokyo's famous Shibuya scramble intersection in action: jp.youtube.com/watch?v=39CHg5Tbcuw

And from the pedestrian's point of view: jp.youtube.com/watch?v=2gyJdZE7IMU&feature=related