A pickup truck driver has been charged after police say he failed to yield and fatally struck a 73-year-old woman in a crosswalk along Route 120 in McHenry Wednesday morning.
The McHenry Township Fire Protection District and McHenry Police Department responded around 6:38 a.m. Wednesday to the area of Route 120 and Oak Drive for a vehicle crash with injuries.
Officers discovered a vehicle crash involving a car and a pedestrian, police officials said.
A preliminary investigation determined the pedestrian was struck by a red 2012 GMC Sierra, driven by Matthew Straley, 37, of McHenry.
Straley had been traveling southbound on Oak Drive attempting to turn left onto eastbound Route 120, also known as Elm Street, when the collision occurred.
A LifeNet medical helicopter was placed on standby but later canceled.
The pedestrian, a 73-year-old McHenry woman, was found down on the ground and paramedics transported her to Northwestern Medicine Hospital in McHenry where she was later pronounced dead.
The identity of the woman is being withheld pending identification and notification to her family by the McHenry County Coroner’s Office, police officials said. No other injuries were reported as a result of the crash.
Straley remained on the scene and was cooperating with investigators.
The McHenry County Regional Crash Assistance Team responded to the scene to conduct an investigation.
The team consists of police officers from the McHenry Police Department, Woodstock Police Department, Spring Grove Police Department, Harvard Police Department, Cary Police Department and the Johnsburg Police Department.
The police department sent an alert around 7 a.m. warning motorists to avoid the intersection of Route 120 and Oak Drive near Jewel Osco for the next several hours due to the incident.
Eastbound traffic on Route 120 was shut down by officers, the alert said. It reopened around 10 a.m.
In an update, police announced Thursday they had completed their investigation.
Police officials said Straley had failed to yield to the woman, who was in a crosswalk, and also disobeyed a traffic control device.
He was cited for failure to reduce speed to avoid a crash, failure to yield at a crosswalk and disobeying a traffic control device.