Portland , OR :Driver may have had medical episode in deadly Burnside Bridge crash on Sunday , June 14th 2015

One person has died from his injuries and another remains hospitalized after a driver jumped the curb on the Burnside Bridge and drove onto the sidewalk.The crash was reported just after 2 p.m. Portland Police say the driver was traveling eastbound on the bridge when he left the roadway, drove onto the sidewalk, struck a man and a woman and crashed into the railing.Police say George Ben "Benjamin" Carlson, 36, was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries and later pronounced dead. Bridget Larrabee, 35, was hospitalized but is expected to be OK. Larrabee and Carlson lived together in Northeast Portland, police said.The driver, from Beaverton, remained on scene after the crash and has been cooperative. Police say he was released after the crash and not arrested; he did not show any signs of impairment.The Burnside Bridge is the only one of the five bridges near downtown Portland that allows pedestrians and is a high-crash corridor. "If a barrier can't do in tomorrow, can we talk about lowering speeds?" Noel Mickleberry, executive director for Oregon Walks, said. "Can we talk about ways to make that street safer?"Mickleberry pointed out there is no physical barrier between cars and people walking on the Burnside, just a narrow bike lane and a curb. The Broadway, Morrison, and Steel bridges all have barriers protecting walkers.The Hawthorne, like the Burnside, leaves walkers out in the open, but cars there drive much slower.“People do make mistakes,” Mickleberry said. “People making mistakes behind a fast moving, really heavy object, we should be making sure that our streets are safe enough for that to happen and it not be deadly.”

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Driver may have had medical episode in deadly Burnside Bridge crash