Doc Was Driving While Texting?

By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal

If there are any drivers out there still glued to their cellphone, while paying no attention to the road in front of them — sure there are … see them all the time — then they only need to read the story of Dr. Ameer Elsayed Hassan, a board-certified neurologist, to consider changing their behavior.

This case emanates out of Cameron County (Harlingen), but this could have taken place anywhere in the U.S., Texas, drivers stuck to their cell phones, distracted from the road, and wham, there goes the pedestrian in the intersection.

Hassan, 43, was indicted by a state grand jury (Cameron County) in late October with one count of second- degree manslaughter. To make matters worse for the accused, police say, per the indictment, that the doctor was “using his cell phone” while driving his red pickup, and that he failed to yield the right of way to a crossing pedestrian, 73-year-old San Juana Benavides Sanchez.

Does that mean, per phone records, that he was talking on his cellphone or using it to text or email?

When Mrs. Sanchez was struck shortly after 12 p.m., according to police, she was crossing the street at a valid intersection crosswalk, north Ed Carey and Pease, in front of the Valley Baptist Medical Center.

The doctor stopped to render assistance, but the victim succumbed to her injuries the same day, April 26.

Last week, Hassan pled not guilty to the one felony charge.

Two months ago, the Texas Medical Board suspended his medical license.

If he’s convicted, his license may be permanently revoked.

From the Texas Medical Board Rules and Regulations: Rule 167.1(a)(2): “The Medical Board may revoke a doctor’s license if the doctor has been convicted of a felony that indicates a lack of fitness to practice medicine.”

If Hassan is convicted and loses his medical license, the financial cost (loss of income) has to be substantial, on top of a presumed wrongful death civil suit that would attempt to drain him of most assets.

Too Many Deaths

In this story, a woman died. No doubt a mom, grandma, maybe even a great-grandma, 73-year-old San Juana Benavides Sanchez is sadly gone forever.

If found guilty of the cellphone charge (talking, texting, or emailing), and the charge won’t be hard to prove with the subpoenaed phone records in hand, which should also seal his fate with the second-degree manslaughter conviction, then all those years, too, that went into his training as a neurologist, at least four years in a residency, after four years of med school, after four years of college, and at the age of 43, he’s got at least 10 years in medical practice already under his belt. All of that, maybe gone in a flash. His license is already suspended.

Up in Corpus, according to a local media outlet, 3 News, five Corpus pedestrians were hit by a vehicle within the last two months.

Unlike the Harlingen accident, none of those struck in Corpus were using a crosswalk. All of them, too, were over the age of 65.

Apparently, things are only getting worse.

According to TxDOT, pedestrian traffic fatalities increased 29.6 percent in Texas in the last five years and now account for one in five of all roadway deaths.

Among the top four factors contributing to these fatalities, according to Tx-DOT — drivers failing to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians.