Vandora death ruled accident

Matt McHugh was on his way to his North Hills home from Eat’N Park after playing racquetball… Matt McHugh was on his way to his North Hills home from Eat’N Park after playing racquetball at Trees Hall at a little after 10:30 p.m. on Friday. He was stopped at a red light on Bellefield Avenue, about to turn on to Fifth Avenue, when he looked to the right and saw what looked like a body lying in front of a Port Authority Transit bus.

“My first reaction was to honk,” McHugh said.

Despite his honking, McHugh said the bus continued forward, pushing the form in front of it, and then under it, as it moved. McHugh said he began to wonder if he had been mistaken in what he had seen when he saw a black winter hat roll out from under the moving bus, and then a larger object rolling under it.

At that point, McHugh said he and another car turned onto Bellefield, honking at the bus, which eventually came to a stop outside Clapp Hall, near Tennyson Avenue. There, a blue vehicle joined McHugh and the other car from Bellefield and pulled in front of the bus to keep it, and the body underneath, from moving more.

The entire sequence took maybe five seconds, McHugh said.

“Now it seems like a lifetime, thinking back,” he said.

The body was that of Thomas Justin Vandora, 19, a Pitt freshman from Crafton, Pa.

McHugh said that, when the driver got out of the bus, he appeared to have no idea that someone had been struck.

“I said ‘you hit someone,'” McHugh said. “He said ‘no.’ I said ‘he was dragged under.'”

McHugh said the driver, still in disbelief, then went to check under the bus, saw the body and then called from his radio.

While city police and medics were on their way to the scene, McHugh said, he and other witnesses saw Vandora move his arm and head, but Vandora was not responding to his surroundings.

According to Peggy Rothert, the officer in charge of the investigation for the Pittsburgh police’s Traffic Investigation Unit, Vandora was probably hit head-on and then pulled under the bus.

According to the city Coroner’s Office, Vandora’s death has been ruled an accident, the cause being “asphyxiation due to compression of the chest due to blunt force trauma.”

Port Authority Transit Spokesman Bob Grove said, according to PAT standard procedure for any accident, the driver was administered a drug and alcohol test and is being held off with pay while the investigation is pending.

Both Grove and Rothert said the investigation could take a month or more to be resolved.

“A lot of different departments here at the Port Authority come together,” Grove said. “[They] take a total look at what happened.”

Tests for drugs and alcohol in the systems of the driver and victim have not been returned yet, but Rothert said they would be used in the investigation.

Rothert said that police also inspected the bus and talked to three or four witnesses to the accident.

She said that, if the bus driver did not see Vandora, it is very possible he or she was unaware that there had been a collision.

“You might feel a thump, you might not,” she said. “Buses this big, a lot of the time you may not feel anything.”

Grove said he does not know what the Port Authority would do in the event of criminal charges being filed and that he did not think they will be.

“I’ve been here almost five years and it’s never happened,” he said.

Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Robert Hill released a statement of remorse about the death of Vandora, who was known by his middle name Justin, from the University.

“Our heart goes out to the family of Justin Vandora. It was a tragic accident and our hearts are with his family at this time,” he said.

But before the investigation had even begun, shortly after city officials arrived on the scene, McHugh and other witnesses were not thinking about public statements or official protocol.

McHugh said that, before the body was identified, he went back to his car to call his little brother, a Pitt student, to make sure he was OK.

“You see something like that happen, you start to wonder what’s the point. Everything seems so arbitrary,” McHugh said. “I still don’t feel like doing anything.”