Crosswalk Accident Causes Student Death

In a car-pedestrian acci­dent that occurred early Friday morn­ing, Fumitoshi Yonemura died after being struck by a vehi­cle on north­bound State Street near the Interdisciplinary Resource Center (IRC) building.

Yonemura, 18, was cross­ing State street at 7:56 a.m., accord­ing to the police report, when struck by a red truck. The police report, filed by Sargeant Craig S. Brockette, stated that eye­wit­nesses con­firmed that the vehi­cle had the green light, and that the walk sign showed a solid red. Yonemura was thrown onto the side­walk upon collision.

The dri­ver was Richard Weisenberger of New Hudson, Mich. Statements from eye­wit­nesses also said that there were cars on the inside lane of north­bound State Street that obstructed the view of both the dri­ver and the pedes­trian. The author­i­ties on scene included the Big Rapids Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the FSU DPS, among oth­ers. No charges have been issued.

A state­ment released by Leah Nixon, direc­tor of news ser­vices at Ferris, stated that local author­i­ties were attempt­ing to con­tact the fam­ily and friends of Yonemura shortly after he was con­firmed dead.

Yonemura, a fresh­man at Ferris State from Novi, Mich. was pro­nounced dead at the Mecosta County Medical Center. He was a stu­dent in the biotech­nol­ogy program.

Ferris President David Eisler said that this is a very sad day at Ferris. “I ask that you remem­ber the Yonemura fam­ily in your thoughts and prayers.”