Pedestrian dies after drunk driver incident

One man is dead and another recovering after being hit by a drunk driver on the south I-20 service road early Saturday morning.

Jackson Mitcham, 21, of Sterlington, died in a Shreveport hospital after being airlifted there for treatment, Ruston city police said Monday. Mitcham’s companion, 20-year-old Hahn Bridges, of Monroe, was treated and released from Northern Louisiana Medical Center, police said.

The driver of the vehicle that hit the two men, 20-year-old Abby Sterling, of Shreveport, was charged with two counts of first-degree negligent injury.

Both the victims and driver were believed to have been coming from The Revelry, a popular bar on the service road, not far from where the accident happened, Ruston Police Deputy Chief Henry Wood said.

Police found the victims lying on the north shoulder of the road and Sterling’s silver Nissan Altima stopped in the left-hand lane. The vehicle had major damage to the front end and windshield.

Sterling, a Louisiana Tech University student, reportedly told police she was driving east on the service road and Mitcham and Bridges were standing in the middle of the road. She said she tried to stop but didn’t have enough space to avoid hitting them.

According to Sterling’s arrest affidavit, her blood alcohol content was more than twice the limit considered intoxicated under Louisiana law.

Sterling was booked into the Lincoln Parish Detention Center on $50,000 bond.

Saturday’s incident was the second pedestrian fatality in Ruston in four days. On Wednesday, 41-year-old Luis Alberto Esparza Rios of New Orleans, died when he was struck by multiple vehicles as he tried to cross a busy stretch of Cooktown Road.