{"id":32585,"date":"2016-07-03T08:02:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-03T15:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/bicyclist-hit-killed-on-sterling-highway\/"},"modified":"2016-07-03T08:02:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T15:02:00","slug":"bicyclist-hit-killed-on-sterling-highway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/bicyclist-hit-killed-on-sterling-highway\/","title":{"rendered":"Bicyclist hit, killed on Sterling Highway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>KENAI<\/strong> \u2014 A 50-year-old Soldotna bicyclist was struck and killed on Sterling Highway by a Ford F350 commercial vehicle operated by Nikiski man.<\/p>\n<p>The bicyclist, Vanessa Wilkes, and 40-year-old Charles Kuntz, the operator of the vehicle, were headed northbound when Wilkes swerved into the lane of traffic around 4 p.m. Thursday, according to a troopers dispatch. Central Emergency Services also responded and personnel pronounced Wilkes dead at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>The cause of death will be determined by the State Medical Examiner said CES Captain Reed Quinton who was on duty at the time of the accident.<\/p>\n<p>The victim was not transported from where the collision occurred, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Following the accident, troopers diverted northbound traffic to the ATV trail that parallels the highway, Quinton said.<\/p>\n<p>The Sterling Highway was closed for approximately two hours while the scene was documented, and reopened at 6 p.m., according to the dispatch. Next of kin have been notified.<\/p>\n<p>Troopers are investigating the accident.<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Kelly Sullivan is a reporter for the Peninsula Clarion. She can be reached at kelly.sullivan@peninsulaclarion.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KENAI \u2014 A 50-year-old Soldotna bicyclist was struck and killed on Sterling Highway by a Ford F350 commercial vehicle operated by Nikiski man. The bicyclist, Vanessa Wilkes, and 40-year-old Charles Kuntz, the operator of the vehicle, were headed northbound when Wilkes swerved into the lane of traffic around 4 p.m. Thursday, according to a troopers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32585"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}