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A former Utah bus driver was panning her surroundings and never saw the slow-moving elderly shoe shop owner whom city prosecutors say she hit and killed in a downtown intersection in 2012, her defense attorney said Wednesday.
"It was like he was beamed down right in front of her," attorney Robert Neeley told a Salt Lake City Justice Court jury during opening statements of a trial for Cheryl Anne Kidd.
Kidd, 51, a former driver for the Utah Transportation Authority, has pleaded not guilty to one count each of negligent operation of a motor vehicle causing personal injury and failure to yield the right of way at a cross walk, in connection with the death of Richard Wirick.
The first is a class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. The second is an infraction for which Kidd could not be incarcerated.
Kidd plans to testify in her own defense, Neeley told the jury.
"She was paying attention to her surroundings" he said. "It's not like she was asleep at the switch, she is trained to pan."
Wirick, 82, owned the Oxford Shop shoe store at 65 W. 100 South for six decades and was so well-known in the community that some called him "Mr. Downtown."
Wirick was struck and pinned under the bus while crossing the intersection of 400 South and 200 East when the traffic signal changed on Feb. 21, 2012.
The victim was not without fault in what happened that day, Neeley told the jury of four men and one woman.
"The pedestrian was not paying attention to what he was doing," Neeley said. "He was walking slow. He doesn't look up. He stares ahead or at the ground."
Wirick was late crossing the street — the light changed while he was in the crosswalk — but drivers of vehicles in two other lanes did stop for the shop owner, noted Assistant Salt Lake City Prosecutor Scott Fisher.
"The UTA bus did not stop," Fisher said.
Prosecutors say Kidd drove through the intersection, hitting Wirick, who was crossing from south to north, when he was in the far right westbound lane of 400 South.
Wirick, who was pinned under the bus for nearly an hour, was transported to a hospital, where he died later that day.
Kidd was fired by UTA a month after the incident.
The first witness called Wednesday was artist Gina Mitchell, who was driving in the middle lane between the UTA bus and a semi-trailer, and said her view of the crosswalk was partially blocked by the semi and didn't notice Wirick making his way across the street until she entered the intersection. She says she stopped at the half-way mark to avoid striking him.
"If I would have kept on going, obviously, I would have hit him," Mitchell testified.
Mitchell says she did not hear the bus horn honk before it hit Wirick and later saw the injured man's body lying "broken" under the low-sitting UTA vehicle.
On cross-examination, Mitchell said she never saw Wirick look toward oncoming traffic as he crossed the street.
"He was looking straight ahead," she said.
Testimony in the case is expected to continue on Thursday.
A wrongful death lawsuit filed on behalf of Wirick's family was resolved through a settlement and dismissed in April. Terms of the settlement have not been publicly disclosed.
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