Pedestrian Hospitalized After Being Hit By Vehicle

SOUTH AUSTIN, TX -- Austin-Travis County EMS first responders working the night shift don’t get a holiday.

Less than two hours before the stroke of midnight ushered in a new year, emergency personnel Thursday night reached the scene of an accident in Southeast Austin involving a pedestrian hit by a vehicle.

The accident occurred in the 10200 block of FM 812, just south of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Medics were on scene to treat a male victim in his 20s for injuries sustained after being hit by the vehicle. He was transported to the University Medical Center Brackenridge trauma center with potentially life-threatening injuries, according to emergency officials.

This isn’t the first time the farm-to-market road has been the site of accidents--some involving pedestrians, some with deadly results.

Just last month, the bodies of two pedestrians were found in a ditch in the 8900 block of FM 812, east of Highway 183. Emergency officials on scene theorized the two had been involved in a auto-pedestrian hit-and-run, according to multiple media reports.

Law enforcement officials later identified the pair as 39-year-old Maria Ramirez of Austin and 35-year-old Luis Bonilla-Gutierrez of Smithville. Passersby came across their bodies the morning of Nov. 8, 2015, prompting Department of Public Safety officials to further investigate.

Just a month before the grisly discovery, the roadway was the scene of a double fatality after a collision between a truck and a motorcyle.

On Oct. 23, a 2 a.m. crash in the 2100 block of FM 812, near Highway 21 in Bastrop County, claimed two lives. DPS officials reported at the time that a motorcycle had been traveling north on FM 812 while a Chevy Avalanche was heading south, according to news reports by KXAN-TV.

The Chevy veered onto the wrong side of the road, hitting the motorcycle. The crash claimed the lives of the motorcyclist, a 51-year-old Del Valle man, and a 39-year-old woman from Cottonwood Shores. Both were dead at the scene, and the driver of the Chevy was charged with two counts of intoxication manslaughter.

In early 2013, the Austin American-Statesman reported on another crash on FM 812 that claimed the life of a driver. Shortly before 7 a.m. on Feb. 22, 2013, police began to get calls reporting a recklessly driven pickup truck near the Texas 130 toll road before the vehicle crashed into a garbage truck waiting to turn left from FM 812.

Larry Allen Overall, 49, had been driving west on FM 812 toward the tollway when he hit the truck. A Del Valle resident whose photography was featured in the local Bastrop Advertiser community newspaper, Overall was declared dead at the scene.

FM 812 traces its roots to 1948, when the designation was first used for a road segment between SH 183 (along the current US 183 alignment) and Elroy. The artery would eventually be extended southeast to SH 21 in 1953, seven miles southeast by 1962 and to its current ending point near Red Rock by 1964.

All told, FM 812 starts at the intersection with FM 20 just west of Round Rock in western Bastrop County. It then proceeds northwest through Elroy to its terminus at US 183 south of the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport within the Pilot Knob community.