KENT, Wash. — A Kent neighborhood is alarmed after two fatal accidents on the same street in less than three months. This comes as we learn the identity of the elderly woman struck and killed by a driver who took off.
We have been digging into how many accidents with serious injuries have happened on Central Avenue South in the last couple of years.
We counted at least five all along that busy roadway.
These accidents are having an impact on the people who live and work here.
A couple blocks north of where the elderly woman was killed, another person was killed.
It was the day before last Thanksgiving when 48-year-old bicyclist Jason Allen Coffin was struck and killed outside 802 Central Avenue South.
“I’m the general manager for the corporation,” said Yajaira Licona, who works for Chiropractor Physicians, Inc. “But I got a phone call letting me know there was someone who just got hit.”
Licona wasn’t working that sad day.
“They were calling me panicking because it was, you know, extreme scenario,” said Licona. “With a pile of blood and everything with someone laying down. I mean we have seen it all here.”
It does appear they have.
There was a 3-car accident in the 1700 block of Central Avenue South in December of 2022.
The next two months, two more people were killed on this same road - 18-year-old Eduardo Cisneros in a four-car pileup, and 44-year-old Alvin Walker, struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Then in July of last year, another accident, also on Central Avenue South, sent two people to the hospital.
“She was on the sidewalk and she didn’t make it,” said Cliff Campbell, a long-time Central Avenue South resident.
His daughter was killed on the sidewalk too, 34 years ago.
“I’ve wanted to put up a banner,” he said. “‘Welcome to Central Avenue South Speedway. Speed limit. What speed limit?”
Now it is the family of Natalya Radchuk that is grieving.
The 84-year-old woman was killed on Central Avenue South Sunday night.
Eyewitnesses say a small, red four-door sedan struck her and sped off.
Radchuk, originally from Belarus, married a widower five years her senior and won his children’s hearts.
Now people she doesn’t know are calling for something to be done to prevent another tragedy on this road.
In fact, KIRO 7 talked by telephone to Radchuk’s stepson.
He said she was wonderful, a devout woman who was a great companion for his dad. Now he’s a widower again.
And still, the person who killed her is on the loose. The red car that struck her should have front-end damage.
If you see it, you’re asked to call Kent Police.
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