Man Hit, Killed While Assisting Crash Victims

In a tragic turn of events that officials say is problematic on Southern California’s tangled freeways, a 29-year-old man was hit by a car and killed early Thursday after he stopped on the Costa Mesa Freeway to help three people at an accident scene.

Steven Wayne Murray of Long Beach came upon the two-car crash shortly before 1:30 a.m. in Tustin and pulled alongside the drivers, leaving his car in a northbound traffic lane as he went to help, California Highway Patrol Officer Raul Malfavon said.

As he walked to the driver’s side of a Ford pickup that had been involved in the collision, Murray was hit when another driver could not slow down in time and hit the pickup, pushing it into him, Malfavon said.

Murray was thrown from the road and died at the scene, officials said.

“It was one of those things where instinct took over and he felt the need to help,” said JoAnn O’Hair, a CHP spokeswoman. “He did what all of us have the inclination to do. But unfortunately, and like so many other victims who stop like that, he paid the ultimate price for his goodness.”

Murray, who was engaged to be married next month, was working the night shift for his job as a courier when the accident occurred, said his mother, Julie Bessenbacher. She said his decision to stop and check on the victims did not surprise her because her son “had a heart of gold.”

“He drove a lot, at night and all over the place,” Bessenbacher said. “And it wasn’t like he was in the habit of worrying about every person on the road, but he was just very kind. He was generous and he’d give anything to help someone in need.”

His giving spirit was most apparent in his decision to marry his 20-year-old girlfriend, whom he’d dated for the last few months, Bessenbacher said. Murray wanted to start a family with his fiance, who is pregnant.

“It isn’t his baby but he wanted to love it like it was,” she said. “He wanted to give that child a chance at a real family and they were on their way to doing just that.”

Fatal crashes like the one Thursday are hardly uncommon, particularly on the congested roadways of Southern California, O’Hair said. Last year, 3,371 pedestrians were killed on state freeways and county roads, victims who were outside of their cars for any number of reasons, including to change a tire, fill their gas tank or walk to an emergency call box, she said. Many were acting as good Samaritans and, like Murray, died while trying to help others.

“It happens more often than most people think,” O’Hair said. “When you’re trying to help someone in that kind of a situation, you forget about your own safety and often don’t make the best choices.”

In Thursday’s incident, CHP investigators suspect Murray went to talk to the driver of the Ford pickup, who had rear-ended a Jeep Cherokee and was later arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. As Murray stood in the northbound lane, the driver of another car coming up on the scene was unable to stop before crashing into the pickup, which then hit him, officials said.

An emergency call box less than 50 yards from the scene went unused, O’Hair said.

“If he had just pulled over to the shoulder and walked to that phone, he’d probably still be here,” she said, noting that the woman who hit Murray was not charged in the crash. “It’s just so tragic that it had to happen that way.”

CHP officials urge motorists who come upon accident scenes to use a cellular telephone or call box to notify authorities before stopping to help on their own.

Accident victims and the people who try to help them are thrown into danger by gawking motorists who are more interested in checking out the scene than watching their driving, Malfavon said.

“If you stop on the freeway for any reason, even to change a tire, you should be aware of rubberneckers,” he said. “They’re the cause of many, many accidents--sometimes multiple ones at the same scene.”

Last year in Orange County, at least three good Samaritans were killed by freeway passersby who were engrossed in crash scenes. In one, a Newport Beach man died while helping a stranded woman change her tire on the shoulder of the Orange Freeway in Santa Ana. A similar fatality occurred when a Laguna Niguel man offered to help push a stranger’s car off the San Diego Freeway and was sideswiped by a oncoming car.

A Yorba Linda man was killed last spring while darting across the Riverside Freeway to help the victims in a crash he had just witnessed. CHP officials said the man was hit by the driver of a Ford van who didn’t see the pedestrian because he was looking sideways at the scene.

Bessenbacher said she hoped the woman who accidentally hit her son was recovering from the tragedy as well.

“It’s an awful thing for everybody, no matter how you look at it,” she said. “All I can do now is believe in my heart that God knows what he’s doing.”

Times correspondent Jack Leonard contributed to this report.