Man Offers Aid, Finds Son Dead

A retired firefighter who stopped to help at the scene of an accident in which a young motorcyclist had slammed into a fence post discovered that the victim was his son, Tustin police said Wednesday.

Police Sgt. Mike Shanahan said William Ward, 42, was on his way to his home in Irvine on Moulton Parkway at about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday when he came upon the accident. Police officers were already there, waiting for paramedics to arrive. But Robert William Ward, 22, was dead at the scene.

“He just happened by and saw officers on the side of the road, so he figured an accident of some kind had occurred,” Shanahan said. “He stopped because he thought he could be of help because the paramedics were not there yet.”

“The victim’s mother was also there, but to our knowledge she did not see her injured son,” a police spokesman said Wednesday night.

Shanahan said a witness told police the younger Ward was eastbound on his motorcycle on Moulton Parkway when he passed a car a mile east of Red Hill Avenue. Moments later, Ward lost control of the motorcycle, which ran off the straight road at more than 60 m.p.h., the witness said, and struck a steel fence post beside the U.S. Marine Corps Helicopter Air Station.