Updated: Victim identified in fatal Lexington crash on New Circle Road
.jpg "A pedestrian was taken to the hospital following a crash on West New Circle Tuesday.")
A pedestrian died early Tuesday morning after being struck by a car in Lexington, police said.
Police responded to a crash involving two cars and a pedestrian on West New Circle Road near Leestown Road just before 3 a.m., said Lt. Jesse Palmer of the Lexington Police Department.
The pedestrian was taken to UK Hospital with life-threatening injuries, WKYT reported. The pedestrian was later reported dead, said Palmer, who could not provide identifying information.
The Fayette County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as Adoph Nundu, 27. He was declared dead at 3:25 a.m. Tuesday from multiple blunt force injuries.
Nundu’s death was labeled as an accident by the coroner’s office.
The police’s Collision Reconstruction Unit was investigating the crash and Palmer said he was “unaware” if there would be any charges.
The crash closed the outer loop of New Circle Road until about 5:30 a.m. when the road was cleared and open, Palmer said. No other injuries were reported.
Tuesday’s deadly crash comes less than two weeks after a 33-year-old University of Kentucky music educator was killed after being struck by a vehicle at the intersection of Rosemont Garden and Nicholasville Road.
Lexington had reported 48 fatal crashes resulting in 48 deaths through the end of November this year, according to Kentucky State Police. There were 35 deadly crashes in Lexington last year, which caused a total of 38 deaths.
Nineteen of those involved a pedestrian being killed after being hit by a vehicle, according to KSP. That’s a 533% increase from the same time last year, when three pedestrians were killed in crashes.
Fatal crashes have been most common this year on I-75, New Circle Road and Richmond Road, according to KSP.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
This story was originally published December 26, 2023 at 7:58 AM.