DOWNTOWN: Man somehow became entangled in rear wheels as tractor-trailer turned corner.
A dump truck hit a man on a downtown corner and dragged him 10 blocks in a grisly accident that plugged inner city traffic for five hours Saturday.
Anchorage police said the tractor-trailer driver didn't realize he'd hit the pedestrian, who was rolled up in the truck's rear wheels, and didn't stop until a motorist flagged him down.
The victim, who was not immediately identified, suffered "significant injuries" and was dead on the scene, said police Sgt. Matt Bloodgood.
The accident unfolded about 8:30 a.m. when the rig -- a tractor pulling a belly-dump trailer -- turned right off A Street and headed east on Sixth Avenue. It was on the corner that the truck hit the man, who became bound up in the right-side wheels on the back end of the trailer.
It was snowing at the time, and daybreak was just starting, Bloodgood said.
The truck continued down Sixth Avenue for several blocks -- rolling through the intersections of Barrow, Cordova, Denali, Eagle and so on -- until another motorist saw the victim hung up in the truck wheels.
The motorist, whom police didn't identify, sped up and flagged down the truck, which came to a stop between Juneau and Karluk streets in front of the Mercedes-Benz dealership there.
With a 10-block accident scene to investigate, many of the city's police officers blocked off traffic all along that stretch of Sixth Avenue, which is a major, one-way channel out of downtown Anchorage.
Police called in a barricade company to help block streets.
To further keep traffic out of the accident scene, police also sealed off business parking lots with barricades and crime-scene tape.
The area where the truck stopped is packed with businesses including auto dealerships, a Red Roof Inn, a Chevron gas station, the Lighting Gallery, an Allstate Insurance office and many others.
Bloodgood said the five-hour shutdown of Sixth Avenue was necessary given the unusual scale of the accident scene. Investigators needed to take pictures, measurements and collect evidence.
"The guy was dragged across an asphalt surface for a significant distance," he said, declining to give further details.
Tare Choi, sales manager at Alaska Professional Auto, said the truck stopped directly in front of their snow-covered lot.
"The semi (driver) probably didn't even feel the guy," he said.
As police and other emergency responders worked the scene, Choi said he saw blankets, rags and blood on the ground. They took tires and rims off the dump trailer and hauled them away on a flat-bed wrecker, Choi said.
Police yelled at anyone who tried to walk across the street, but that wasn't enough for one man who was handcuffed and led away, he said.
One intoxicated man was, in fact, detained at the scene and taken to the sleep-off center, Bloodgood said.
"He was just being obnoxious," Bloodgood said.
The truck driver, Stephen W. Haines, 57, of Anchorage, didn't realize his rig wheels had caught the victim and he was shaken by the accident, the sergeant said.
As of late afternoon, investigators were still trying to determine exactly how the victim got caught in the truck wheels. They're not sure if he was standing on the corner or in the street, or whether the long semi cut close to or over the corner as it turned off A Street onto Sixth Avenue, Bloodgood said.
He also couldn't say if the victim had been drinking.
The truck driver voluntarily took a toxicology test right after the accident and "did not exhibit any signs of impairment," according to a police news release.
While the victim had some documentation on his person, the medical examiner will use fingerprints to make a positive identification next week, Bloodgood said.
Haines was driving the dump truck for RL Trucking doing business as Alaska Freightways of Anchorage, he said. A message left at the firm seeking comment on the accident wasn't returned Saturday.
This has been a tough year for pedestrian fatalities in Anchorage.
At least eight people on foot have died this year in traffic, compared to four in each of the two prior years. Police say chances of pedestrian deaths go up with the onset of winter snow and darkness.
Find Wesley Loy online at adn.com/contact/wloy or call 257-4590.
