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Sat 16 Sep 2006 6:56
by Kevin McGehee
54° and clear
in Coweta County, GA
1 comment
[Alaska]
[Here's Your Sign]
[Yippee-Ki-Yay!]
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I’d seen two previous News-Miner reports on this accident, but a browse of the archives this morning has failed to turn up those reports. The first tells of a horrendous accident on Chena Hot Springs Road in which a driver and front-seat passenger were injured and a 74-year-old man in the back seat was killed—and the driver of the truck that hit them ran into the woods as astonished witnesses looked on. The second tells of the hit-and-run driver’s arrest.
Now we learn that the backseat passenger in the car was a noted scientist.
Yong-Ki Kim: This wasn’t in the police report that told of the death of a 74-year-old tourist a week ago today on Chena Hot Springs Road.
When the pickup truck smashed into a parked car, it brought an end to the distinguished career of Dr. Yong-Ki Kim.
He was a physicist who studied the secrets of the atom, first at the Argonne National Laboratory, where he became the senior physicist, and later at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Carl Williams, the chief of the atomic physics division at the technology institute in Maryland, stated in an e-mail to the News-Miner that Kim is credited with outstanding contributions in fusion and plasma science research.
“One of his most notable achievements was the development, with Eugene Rudd of the University of Nebraska, of the Binary-Encounter-Bethe theory, which allowed the precise calculation of ionization cross sections for numerous atoms, ions and molecules relevant to fusion research,” he said.
Kim retired from the lab in 2002, but continued as a part-time contractor. He published more than 110 scientific papers and submitted what will be his final research report just a week before his death. He was in Alaska on vacation with his wife and son.» Dermot Cole: Chena Hot Springs crash claimed life of prominent scientist
The driver claims he left the scene to try to get help, though with other drivers right there having seen the crash, you’d think the best way to get help would be to stay put and flag somebody down.
In other words, that drunkard is probably going away for a long time.
Update, 2 October 2007: He got eighteen years.
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