The West Seattle Bridge was closed for about eight hours last Thursday while police investigated an accident scene in which three people died, resulting in a difficult morning commute for West Seattle drivers. The westbound lanes of the bridge were opened a few hours sooner than the eastbound side.

Police said they received numerous inquiries on why collision and its aftermath required that portions of the bridge be closed to traffic for several hours, affecting thousands of drivers. The police investigation took approximately four hours to complete, but the crash also caused damage to the bridge itself, which required several more hours of work by traffic crews to prepare it to safely handle traffic.

Members of the Seattle Police Department, Seattle Fire Department and the Seattle Department of Transportation and other agencies worked cooperatively to respond to the collision, said a police news release.

Seattle Police reportedly arrived on the scene within four minutes of the call being dispatched. Officers arrived to find the vehicle on its side and fully engulfed in flames. At this point officers had no way of knowing what events had led up to the collision or the surrounding circumstances. Once the fire was extinguished it was determined that the vehicle contained three deceased victims.

Police said that in any fatality it is the duty and obligation of officers to do a complete and thorough investigation. Detectives only have one opportunity to collect evidence and document the scene. This particular scene was challenging due to the large amount of debris scattered over three different roadways - Highway 99, the West Seattle Bridge and Spokane Street).

In addition, the condition of the vehicle and the bodies made any determination of the accident circumstances particularly difficult. Detectives said they needed to proceed without making any assumptions about the cause of the collision. Because there were no witnesses to the collision, detectives needed to rule out the possible involvement of other vehicles, or any other crime that might have contributed to the collision.

After the detectives completed their work, the Fire Department brought cutting tools to remove the bodies from the vehicle for the Medical Examiner.

The closure resulted in a record crowd of West Seattle residents rode the Elliott Bay Water Taxi on Thursday morning to escape the transportation bottleneck.

Argosy Cruises, which operates King County Metro's waterborne transit service between downtown and West Seattle's Seacrest Park, reports that 1,147 passengers rode the water taxi between the first morning trip and the 1 p.m. sailing from Seacrest. Based on 2005 ridership figures, the water taxi averages 530 riders on a typical June day.

"This unprecedented one-day ridership demonstrates the water taxi's importance as an emergency transportation safety valve for the West Seattle peninsula," said County Councilman Dow Constantine. "In light of the devastating effect the upcoming reconstruction of the Alaskan Way Viaduct is expected to have on auto access to West Seattle, expansion of water taxi service could be a key mitigation measure. I will continue to work with Executive Ron Sims on waterborne transit solutions throughout King County."

Due to a backlog of passengers at the Seacrest Dock, Argosy Cruises pressed the larger Goodtime II into service for a single run to supplement the 149-passenger Sightseer, which normally serves the route. Argosy's John Blackman credits his maintenance crew for putting the second boat into service after receiving reports of large numbers of passengers lined up at the Seacrest dock.

The three victims of the crash were identified by the Medical Examiner's Office as Puttanapoong Srisuthisuriya, 17; Andrew Lam, also 17, and Dararith Sok, 18.

They were driving eastbound and ran into the divider at the First Avenue South exit. Fire then engulfed the car.

According to the Medical Examiner's Office, Srisuthisuriya died of burns to 95 percent of his body surface, inhalation of toxic products burned in the fire, and blunt-force impact to the head.

Lam died of inhalation of toxic products and burns.

Sok was killed by blunt force injury of the torso.