Columnist Susan Snyder: Answers are simple, but not easy

Friday, April 5, 2002 | 2:55 a.m.

Las Vegas Metro Police Detective Bill Redfairn's job is to answer the hard questions.

It makes him weary.

"Why didn't I see that car? Why didn't I see that pedestrian? Why didn't that driver see my son or daughter?" Redfairn recited them from the list in his head.

It's a list he recalled under the glare of studio lights for a series of public service announcements about pedestrian safety by the Safe Communities Partnership. The drive-time messages will be played on radio stations valley-wide, Erin Breen, the partnership's executive director, said.

Material for the spots, which start airing later this spring, was taped Wednesday. Breen assembled a variety of residents, all of whom are connected to crashes between people who drive and those who walk.

There was Redfairn, who investigates crashes and faces the hard questions. And there was the state bicycle and pedestrian educator. Every traffic report, for every person killed while walking, crosses his desk.

Bruce Mackey has read 17 such reports since January -- 12 from Clark County. Another one happened barely two hours before he taped his segment Wednesday.

A 59-year-old woman was stuck on Spring Mountain Road by one of two speeding motorcyclists, both of whom fled the scene, police said.

Speed, Mackey said, causes a lot of heartache.

"People always say, 'I would do anything if I could take it back.' Why not take it back now? Slow down," he said. "Just by going the speed limit or going 5 miles per hour under the speed limit can save a life."

There was a motorist who hit a woman. The pedestrian was dodging moving cars trying to cross mid-block and ran straight into the car's fender.

"It wasn't my fault, but I still felt quite disturbed and responsible," Sharon Rorman, who wasn't charged, said. "It was four years ago. But mentally I still hear that awful thud of her body hitting the vehicle."

There was a Henderson father whose 14-year-old daughter was struck and killed by a laundry truck as she walked to Bishop Gorman High School in 1991. Michelle Brekke's family still mourns her absence. Legalities keep them from talking with the truck driver, who cradled her in his arms as she drew her last breath.

All John Brekke has left are memories and the portrait of a daughter with auburn hair, wearing the cheerleading uniform she loved. She wore it the day she died.

"I don't know how anybody could imagine what it's like to lose a child. Your head will shut down," he said. "None of us have been the same."

There was a trauma nurse who sees the tragic consequences firsthand.

Gregg Faust's voice wavered at the memory of a 3-year-old girl.

"She was blond," he said. "The tire track ran across her shirt, across her belly and onto her little pink shorts. I think we actually worked on her for an hour and a half.

"She died."

Maybe motorists will get the message that pedestrians are people, not targets. Redfairn hopes so.

But he's bracing himself for more questions.

"They're going to stop and think about it for a day or two, and after a few days they're going to go back to me, me, me," he said. "But the day is going to come. And they're going to be asking, 'Why me?'