A nationally renowned infant education researcher died late Thursday night after being struck by a Metrobus as she crossed Wisconsin Avenue in the Friendship Heights neighborhood, police said.
Emily S. Feniche, of the 5900 block of Ingomar Street NW, was walking eastbound across Wisconsin at the corner of Jenifer Street NW just before 11 p.m. when a Metrobus traveling east struck the 64-year-old woman while it was making a right turn.
The death is the fourth pedestrian fatality involving a Metrobus in the past 18 months, officials said.
Fenichel, associate director of D.C.-based Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, was taken to the Washington Hospital Center’s MedStar Unit and pronounced dead at 11:50 p.m. Police said the driver of the bus, Michelle Ferguson, 36, of the 4000 block of Livingston Road SE, did not realize she had struck Fenichel until she was flagged downby another pedestrian. Emergency medical personnel removed the woman from under the 30-foot-long
bus.
Fenichel’s husband, Robert, declined to comment by phone Friday. The case remains under active investigation by the D.C. Police Department’s Major Crash Investigations Unit, officials said.
“This is a very sad and regrettable accident,” said Dan Tangherlini, Metro’s interim general manager. “I want to express my personal sympathy to the family of the woman who died for their loss.”
Ferguson, who has worked for Metro for nearly four years, is on paid leave pending the results of a standard drug and alcohol testing and an internal investigation.
