79
A 41-year-old Ocean View man died Sunday after he fell from the bed of a pickup truck, Big Island police reported.
Hawaii County police said Michael J. Anderson on Saturday was standing in the bed of a Toyota pickup truck traveling west on Walaka Drive when the driver of the truck failed to stop at the stop sign at the intersection with Paradise Parkway. The driver then made a sharp left turn into a gravel lot and Anderson was ejected from the truck bed. He was found unresponsive on the roadway in the eastbound lane of Walaka Drive.
Anderson was taken to Kona Community Hospital in critical condition and later flown to The Queens Medical Center on Oahu, where he was pronounced dead Sunday at 9:38 a.m.
The driver of the truck, 45-year-old Ocean View man, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree negligent injury and driving without insurance. He was released pending further investigation.
The case has been reclassified as negligent homicide. An autopsy has been ordered to determine cause of death.
This is the 11th traffic fatality so far this year compared with 23 at this time last year.
