Fatal Muni Accident: 23-year-old Emily Dunn was struck and killed by a Muni bus less than a month after moving to the city. (Photo: SFStreets Blog)
A 23-year-old woman who moved to San Francisco less than a month ago was struck and killed by a Muni bus Friday in the Castro district.
• A central dispatcher told a Muni driver to take his bus out of service, drive it over to 17th and Noe streets, and start using it as an F-line shuttle. The dispatcher did not tell the driver what route to take.
• The Muni driver was two blocks from his destination when he ran over a pedestrian while trying to make a left turn onto a narrow street in the Castro district.
• The pedestrian, a 23-year-old woman who had just moved to San Franciso last month, died at the scene.
• Muni is investigating why the driver, who has been taken off duty, was not assigned a specific route to his destination.
The fatal pedestrian accident occurred at about 2:30 p.m., according to a report in the San Francisco Examiner.
San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Andraychack said Emily Dunn was crossing the street inside a crosswalk at 18th and Hartford streets, near Castro Street, at the time of the accident.
She was almost all the way across the street when an out-of-service Muni bus that was turning left from 18th Street onto Hartford, struck her. She was knocked down and pinned underneath the bus.
Emergency crews were able to extricate the victim from under the bus but she did not survive. She was pronounced dead at the scene, San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge told the Examiner.
The bus had no passengers aboard. The driver, who had only been on the job since January, was on the 27-Bryant line when he was told by a central control dispatcher that he needed to get his bus over to the F-line terminus at 17th and Noe streets so he could start driving it on that line as a shuttle.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the driver was not given a specific route to the terminus, so he decided on his own how to get there. He was about two blocks from his destination when he struck and killed Emily Dunn.
Muni spokesperson Paul Rose said the driver should not taken the bus on Hartford Street, where there is no scheduled service, and that he should have been assigned a route to his destination.
“They (bus drivers) are supposed to be given a route when they are asked to switch” lines, Rose said. The transit agency is conducting an investigation to see who failed to follow protocol.
Authorities said alcohol is not suspected to be a factor. The driver, who was very upset at the scene, has been put on non-driving status until the investigation is completed.
The victim was an Atlanta native who had just moved to San Francisco less than a month ago. She had just spoken to her mother on a cell phone moments before she was struck and killed.
“It was a very happy conversation,” her mother told the Examiner. “She loved the city and she loved her job.”
Here are more photos of the accident. Click on a thumbnail to see it full-size.
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