MARION COUNTY, OR – A 59-year-old ER doctor from the Portland area will serve just over a year in prison after pleading guilty to charges in connection to the fatal hit-and-run of a pedestrian crossing a crosswalk back in December of 2024.
On December 26th, 2024, Nicolas Hernandez-Mendoza was reportedly legally crossing a crosswalk along North Pacific Highway in Woodburn when he was struck by Kenneth Kolarsky’s vehicle.
According to authorities, Kolarsky briefly stopped his vehicle, maneuvered his vehicle past an unconscious Hernandez-Mendoza, and proceeded to continue driving to work at Silverton Hospital where he clocked in roughly 20 minutes after the incident.
Hernandez-Mendoza was eventually transported to an area hospital to undergo emergency surgery, to which the victim died while being operated on as surgeons were unable to control the bleeding of Hernandez-Mendoza’s spleen.
Investigators were able to identify Kolarsky as their suspect after reviewing surveillance footage obtained from various businesses and residences near the scene of the hit-and-run, placing Kolarsky under arrest on May 17th, 2025.
Kolarsky pleaded guilty earlier in May to a charge of attempted failure to perform the duties of a driver to an injured person, resulting in the defendant only receiving a sentence of 13 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
In defense of the lenient charges and sentencing, prosecutors claimed they only had sufficient evidence of “Kolarsky leaving the scene” and lacked “evidence to conclude that the collision itself was the result of criminal activity.”
In a statement following Kolarsky’s sentencing, Chief Deputy District Attorney Brendan Murphy said, “Regardless of why the accident occurred, to leave a scene after striking someone with your vehicle is a callous disregard for human life. That’s intolerable, and especially offensive when it is committed by a professional who takes an oath to ‘do no harm.’”
In the wake of Hernandez-Mendoza’s passing in 2024, his daughter Kimberly established a GoFundMe to raise funds so that her father’s body could be transferred to Mexico for burial.
When speaking to a local media outlet following her father’s death and Kolarsky’s 2025 arrest, Kimberly stated, “This is someone we’re supposed to trust and sometimes put our lives in his hands, and in that moment, I think he had my dad’s life in his hands but he just made the wrong choice. I could have my father right now.”
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