An Outer Banks man died at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital on July 3 around noon from a recent hit-and-run on Washington Baum Bridge, becoming the fourth fatality from three motor vehicle incidents in less than a week, according to a North Carolina Highway Patrol spokesperson.
Scott William Dawson, 63, was pushing a bicycle over Washington Baum Bridge toward Nags Head from Roanoke Island when a man driving a 2015 Jeep Wrangler struck him just before midnight on June 30, according to N.C. Highway Patrol Sgt. D.C. Pridgen.
Mark Thomas Sullivan, a 44-year-old Manteo resident, was charged in the incident with felony hit-and-run inflicting serious injury or death, misdemeanor driving with a revoked license and failure to reduce speed, an infraction, according to online court records.
Dawson was transported to the Outer Banks Hospital after being struck, but they “put him straight on the helicopter there” to Norfolk, Pridgen said.
Dawson was known to be homeless, and law enforcement did not know why he was pushing the bicycle across the bridge.
Sullivan’s felony charge remains the same in the wake of Dawson’s death, because the way the statute is written, it is the same charge whether the hit-and-run causes death or serious injury, according to Pridgen.
Officers located Sullivan around 5 a.m. on July 1 at his house, where they arrested him, Pridgen said. Sullivan told law enforcement he’d hidden the vehicle in a Colington neighborhood following the incident.
Alcohol was not determined to be a factor in the incident. Sullivan separately faces a pending DWI charge in Dare County, according to Pridgen.
Sullivan was given a $350,000 secured bond, according to online court records.
A separate fatal car crash took place on July 1 around 3 p.m. in Currituck County.
“Penske (Truck Rental) employees were driving a crossover SUV, coming to the beach from Norfolk,” as they move Penske vehicles around to the different locations, according to Pridgen.
The SUV went left of center on U.S. 158 just south of Shortcut Road, sideswiped a minivan on the passenger side, then hit a Dominion Energy truck head-on, he said. “The (Penske) passenger died on the scene of that one.”
Neither speed nor alcohol were determined to be factors, but that incident remains under investigation as of the early afternoon of July 5, according to Pridgen. No charges have been filed.
Larry Edwin Walter, 87, of Virginia Beach, was the passenger who died. He was a U.S. Navy veteran who, at the time of his death, had worked almost 22 years for Penske, according to his obituary.
Richard Mayes, 69, also of Virginia Beach, was the driver and was in critical condition at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital immediately following the incident. On Friday morning, according to the most recent update Pridgen said he received, the hospital was planning to downgrade Mayes’ condition to a “normal” room, due to improvements in his condition.
Previously, best friends and fishing buddies Janice Bateman and Frances Brinn, both 82-year-old Manteo residents, died at area hospitals following a June 27 crash on Roanoke Island near the Washington Baum Bridge.
