'I Just Had A Feeling He Was Gonna Get Hit'

SEATTLE - The images of Tuesday's violent crash are seared in Laura Thoreen's mind. She was driving southbound on Stone Way N. and noticed another car had stopped northbound for an 11-year-old boy. He was trying to cross in the crosswalk at North 41st Street.

The second Thoreen stopped at the crosswalk to let him pass she knew the boy was in trouble.

"I just had a feeling he was gonna get hit."

A fraction of a second later she watched helplessly as another car sped around the stopped northbound traffic and hit the boy in the crosswalk. The impact shattered the windshield, severed a passenger side mirror, and according to Thoreen threw the young boy 20 feet into the air.

"I just started crying," she said. "It was so hard because he was so little and young and like that's such a horrible thing."

We know now that it's a horrible thing that happens in Seattle more than 400 times a year. And we've learned that a tragic coincidence was in the works just a few feet away.

VIP Studios is a small video production facility just north of the crosswalk. They had just finished editing a crosswalk and traffic safety public service announcement the day before.

The PSA is funded by the TIA Foundation. Tia Townsend was an 11-year-old girl killed in a crosswalk three years ago in nearly the same scenario as the Wallingford accident. The PSA is funded by her father's financial settlement with the city of Shoreline where that fatal accident happened.

"And I just shook my head," said VIP Studios Vice President Jack Allen. "And I said I can't believe this is happening right here. Cars just don't stop," he said of the busy stretch of Stone Way N. "Even when they're out in the crosswalk they zoom right on by and it's just frightening."

Frightening even if you're a Seattle cop. Wednesday at a south Seattle crosswalk near Safeco Field, Seattle Police staged a crosswalk sting.

An officer walked the busy crosswalk to see if drivers really would stop as they are required by law. But in several passes drivers sped through the crosswalk just feet from the plain-clothes officer.

In one stroll across the street the officer was narrowly missed by two drivers, one in each direction, who sped through the crosswalk even though he was in the middle of the street. Motorcycle cops pulled the drivers over. The penalty is a $101 fine.

"That vehicle is supposed to stop for the pedestrian regardless of what side of the road the pedestrian is on," said motorcycle officer E. L. Cason.

It's a road rule that cops want all drivers to learn -- without having to witness what Laura Thoreen can't get out of her mind.

"I think after a while I'll be OK," she said of the images still haunting her. "If he's OK then I'll eventually be OK," she said of the boy. "It's gonna be hard to forget."

As of Wednesday night, the 11-year-old boy was listed in critical condition in the intensive care unit of Harborview Medical Center.

The public service announcement produced by the TIA Foundation will be on air in Seattle soon including several spots on KOMO-TV. The tag line is one Dave Townsend repeats often:

"Don't let the five minutes you save getting somewhere.... be the last five minutes of someone's life."