A Harris County family was mourning the death of a father of 11 Tuesday who was struck and killed by a pizza delivery man on Halloween night.
It happened around 8 p.m. Monday in the 27000 block of Huffman-Cleveland near FM 2100.
Deputies said 58-year-old Russell Brandon was riding his motorized bicycle westbound when he was hit by a Ford Mustang.
The 19-year-old driver of the Mustang was delivering pizzas for Big B Pizzeria. He said he didn’t see Brandon until it was too late. Brandon died at the scene.
Family members said Brandon was originally from Scotland and had recently been putting his life back together.
"He had been clean from drug abuse for three years, and he had been rehabilitated and was making peace," Brandon’s daughter, Alison Roth, said.
Deputies said the driver of the Mustang, who will not face charges, was distraught after the accident.
"The Medical Examiner said [the driver] was very apologetic. He didn’t know what to think. I saw the skid marks from his car after he hit my dad – he tried to stop and destroyed his car. I’m surprised he was not hurt," Alison Roth said.
Roth’s husband, Albert, is a Huffman firefighter who happened to come across the accident scene.
He said he ran to help, initially not knowing it was his father-in-law.
"When I got to him, my instinct was to save him. I cut his shirt off and I felt his last pulse, and it’s just an image in your mind that you can’t get out," Albert Roth said.
Alison Roth said while she does feel people drive too fast down the dark roads, in her dad’s case, she wasn’t angry with the young driver.
She said she thinks he was blinded by another vehicle’s high-beams – something that could happen to anyone.
But many in the area said the road, which has no street lights, has been very dangerous for some time.
In fact, there have been more than 200 accidents on FM 2100 in the past two years.
Last year, a Crosby High School cheerleader, Nicole Vestal, lost her life when the car she was in struck a truck.
In December of 2010 a Crosby ISD School bus returning from a ninth grade girls basketball team was struck head on by a Ford Explorer that was traveling at a high rate of speed. The Explorer driver was killed. Eleven people from the bus were transported to area hospitals.
And Texas musician Mean Gene Kelton also died on the road when he hit a Crosby High School bus.
