Police investigate fatal collision

The Sentinel-Record/Grace Brown FATAL ACCIDENT: Two motorcycles lie in the street at the intersection of Malvern and Hollywood Avenues after colliding with a vehicle at around 6:35 p.m. Tuesday. One motorcyclist, Keido "Doc" Lovell Howard, was killed, while the driver of the car and the other motorcyclist were injured.
The Sentinel-Record/Grace Brown FATAL ACCIDENT: Two motorcycles lie in the street at the intersection of Malvern and Hollywood Avenues after colliding with a vehicle at around 6:35 p.m. Tuesday. One motorcyclist, Keido "Doc" Lovell Howard, was killed, while the driver of the car and the other motorcyclist were injured.

Hot Springs police accident reconstruction officers are investigating the cause of a fatal collision between two motorcycles and a car Tuesday evening on Malvern Avenue at the Hollywood Avenue intersection, police Cpl. Kirk Zaner said Wednesday.

Keido "Doc" LaVell Howard, 33, of Hot Springs, whose motorcycle was among a group of six traveling east on Malvern at around 6:35 p.m. Tuesday, died in a head-on collision with the car, a 2003 Buick Regal, while the driver of a second motorcycle from the group, Bobby Ray Riley Jr., 47, of Hot Springs, was injured, Zaner said.

The driver of the Buick, Gwendolyn Faye Muncrief, 77, of Hot Springs, was also injured, according to a preliminary fatal crash summary posted online by Arkansas State Police.

Muncrief was westbound on Malvern, turning left onto Hollywood, when she collided with the motorcycles, Zaner said.

Howard's motorcycle exploded and burst into flames when it collided with the Buick, and he was thrown into the parking lot of National Park Medical Center, 1910 Malvern Ave., adjacent to the intersection. Howard was taken directly from the parking lot into NPMC's emergency room, and later died, Zaner said.

Zaner said Riley laid down his motorcycle, a 1999 Yamaha, prior to colliding with the car. While the motorcycle struck the side of the car, it was unknown Wednesday whether Riley also collided with it. He suffered non life-threatening injuries and was also treated at NPMC. Information on whether he was admitted to the hospital was not available Wednesday.

Zaner said the collision was still under investigation Wednesday by accident reconstruction officers who "will have to determine a lot of factors involved, including the speed of the vehicles."

A witness told the newspaper the impact was "like a bomb going off" with debris flying in all directions.

"About 75 feet from the intersection, this car was attempting to execute a left-hand turn and she was barely making the turn when those bikes came up over the hill in a blur," David Becker, a helicopter pilot for Survival Flight, told the newspaper Tuesday evening.

"At the point of impact, I stopped my car and jumped out. As I was getting out of the car, that motorcycle caught on fire. I raced over to the car and pried the car door open," Becker said.

"Once I could see that the driver was reasonably OK, I went over to one of the men on the motorcycle that I visually saw. I went over there to ask him if he was OK and he complained that his leg was hurting. He was also wearing a helmet. As I was trying to assess him, I was not even aware that there was another man," Becker said.

"The driver of that bike (at the front of the car) was launched on impact a hundred feet over here. It happened so fast, I never saw it," he said.

Becker told the newspaper that Howard appeared to be wearing protective "leathers" over his clothing but he did not know if he was wearing a helmet when he collided with the vehicle.

Becker said his flight crew and several other medical professionals rushed to the victims to provide lifesaving assistance.

Local on 04/19/2018

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