Family Searching For Answers After Man Hit, Killed Hours After Leaving Hospital
CITRUS HEIGHTS (CBS13) - The family of a man killed after he was hit walking on a Citrus Heights roadway is grieving his loss and searching for answers into what went wrong.
California Highway Patrol says 68-year-old Carson Franklin was walking in a lane in the dark on Madison Avenue Saturday night when he was hit.
Officers identified him using the medical bracelet still on his wrist, showing he'd been discharged from Mercy San Juan Hospital just over a mile from the crash site - two hours before he was hit and killed.
The driver is not facing charges.
"We're stuck with a lot of questions and now we have to figure out what the answers are," Carson's son Carson Franklin, Jr said. "I mean, right now it is just absolute shock. We're really coming into this without having anywhere to start, so I guess we'll start with what we know and work backwards."
Carson Franklin, Jr. had last talked to his father two weeks ago. He says he didn't know his father had been in the hospital.
A spokesperson for Mercy San Juan cited patient privacy laws preventing her from speaking about this incident, but issued this statement reading:
"The safety and care of our patients is Dignity Health's top priority and our care teams work diligently to provide the best possible care and experiences for our patients."
Back on Madison Avenue, John Shelton was the first to the crash scene and tried and help. He says he's still shaken by what he saw.
"Right now since it happened on Saturday, you still think about it," Shelton said. "That was somebody's kid, somebody's father."