A local drink driver was arrested after he ran into a jaywalker on the upper level outside the local airport on Avenida Wai Long on Tuesday night and fled the scene, according to a statement by the Public Security Police (PSP) yesterday, noting that the 68-year-old victim was unconscious when she was admitted to hospital.
A video circulating online that night shows a crash involving two jaywalking pedestrians in Avenida Wai Long, one of whom was knocked down by a car and seriously injured.
In response to the “serious traffic accident”, the Public Security Police released a statement in the wee hours of yesterday, identifying the victim as a woman holding an Exit-Entry Permit for Travelling to and from Hong Kong and Macau (colloquially known as a two-way permit), while the suspect is a 28-year-old local man whose alcohol concentration was 0.7 grams of alcohol per litre of blood.
The statement said that the injured woman and her companion did not use the pedestrian crossing and that she was hit by a car, adding that the suspect had fled the scene by the time PSP officers arrived. Only the victim and her companion were there.
The victim was unconscious when she was admitted to the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre for emergency treatment, the statement noted.
According to the statement, the Public Security Police have meanwhile transferred the suspect to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP), facing charges of drink-driving, causing bodily harm by negligence, abandoning the victim of a traffic accident, as well as evading responsibility due to his hit-and-run offence.
Public Security Police spokesman Cheong Heon Fan gave an update on the accident during a regular press conference yesterday afternoon, saying that “the victim was seriously injured but her life is not in danger for the time being”.
Cheong said that PSP officers arrested the suspect surnamed Lai at 1:47 a.m. yesterday at a residential flat in the Fai Chi Kei neighbourhood, and found the vehicle in a nearby public car park.
Under questioning, Lai claimed that when he drove his car along Avenida Wai Long, he was tired and thought he had merely hit the kerb, so he drove away from the scene, insisting that he drank alcohol only at home after driving a friend from Cotai to Fai Chi Kei district.
This video grab made from a dash cam clip circulating on social media on Tuesday night shows a woman from the mainland lying on the ground after she was hit by a car near the local airport on Avenida Wai Long in Taipa.
