Woman in wheelchair struck by car

One of the first residents of the Dina Titus Estates -- subsidized housing near Boulder Highway and Tropicana Avenue for poor, physically disabled adults -- was critically injured Saturday when her wheelchair was struck by a car at a nearby intersection.

According to a Metropolitan Police Department report, witnesses said Edna Sison was crossing against a red light at the intersection of Tropicana and Andover Drive shortly after noon when the accident occurred.

One of the witnesses, according to the report, was a police officer who was waiting to make a left turn from westbound Tropicana to southbound Andover.

He yelled for the pedestrian to stop, but she entered the path of a Dodge Neon driven by Leticia Marquez-Deaceves.

"It appears pedestrian error is the cause of this accident," the police report said.

Another resident of the specially designed housing project, at 5050 Missouri Ave., that affords the disabled independence said it was not uncommon for Sison to cross against a light.

"You go when you think you can," said the woman, who asked not to be named.

"Many of us do. Even when they're green, the lights don't last long enough, and you end up going across on red."

In March 2006, the then-66-year-old Sison, who had used a wheelchair for more than a decade after being stricken by polio in the Philippines, was grateful for the housing named for Democratic state Sen. Dina Titus, the state Senate minority leader and a longtime advocate for the disabled.

"I don't have to bother anybody else to get ready," Sison said at the time.