By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — One of the two pedestrians left in critical condition after being struck Wednesday night by a Mercedes SUV on Imperial Avenue is improving, but the other remains in critical condition.

Police, in a statement Friday morning, said both pedestrians remain under treatment for their injuries at Norwalk Hospital.

Although the pedestrians’ identities were not revealed by police, the statement said the man, a 33-year-old resident of Easton, is now in stable condition, while the condition of a 29-year-old Fairfield woman is critical.

The SUV driver, who also was treated at the hospital, has been released and “is cooperating with the investigation,” police said.

The accident remains under investigation, according to the statement, and no charges have been filed.

The two people were walking on a sidewalk along Imperial Avenue between Jesup Road and Post Road East when the Mercedes veered off the road and hit them. The SUV appears to have also struck stone walls and shed a tire before finally coming to rest a couple hundred feet north in the eastbound lanes of Post Road East.

On Thursday, fluorescent pink spray paint marks on the roadway, sidewalk and grass areas off Imperial Avenue appear to tell the story of how things unfolded the evening before.

Not far from a stop sign on Imperial Avenue at Jesup Road “AOI” and two circles were sprayed on the sidewalk. In accident reconstruction terminology that means area of impacts, and the circles were likely where the two pedestrians were when struck.

After that follow a series of pink dots, apparently tracing the vehicle’s path on and off the road. Along the way, two stones walls show gouges, and another stone wall closer to the Post Road appears scraped.

The Mercedes’s front passenger side wheel lost its tire. It appears as though that happened after one of the SUV’s wall strikes.

From there to the Post Road, the bare rim appears to have left parallel scratch marks the sidewalk.

The spray paint ends in the lanes of Post Road East, where the SUV finally came to a stop.

Westport police accident investigators were assisted by the Fairfield Police Department’s Accident Investigation Team.

Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.