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Driver hits and kills 62-year-old in North Carolina car wash crash, police say

A 62-year-old was hit and killed at a car wash in North Carolina, officials said.

The Wilkesboro Police Department said it believes the man was wiping his car at a vacuum station when an SUV driver ran into him.

Now, the woman accused of being behind the wheel in the Jan. 23 crash has been charged with misdemeanor death by vehicle.

The crash was reported at about 12:30 p.m. at Rocket Wash on U.S. Highway 421 in Wilkesboro. The area is near a Speedway gas station and about 55 miles west of Winston-Salem.

Police Chief Tommy Rhodes told McClatchy News in a phone interview that the Ford SUV driver was in a brush section of the car wash, which pulls drivers through as they have their vehicles in neutral. When she exited, she reportedly “accelerated, colliding with the rear left” of a Toyota.

The Ford driver then ran into the 62-year-old, knocking him into his Hyundai SUV, police said. The man, who died of crash-related injuries, was identified in an incident report as Karl Warren Hunsberger of Wilkesboro.

No other injuries were reported in the crash, which police said caused about $10,000 in damage to a vacuum pole. The Ford and Hyundai SUVs each were left with an estimated $20,000 in damage, according to officials.

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