MEDFORD — When the Ford Taurus crossed the double yellow line in Cambridge and struck Dorothy Steele in her wheelchair, the “boom’’ was so loud it woke a sleeping neighbor in an upstairs bedroom, the crash so severe it left Steele crumpled on the asphalt amid pooling blood and debris, authorities said.
But by the time police tracked down Henry D. Park II — piecing together his path by collecting footage from a series of security cameras — he told them he had felt only a “slight bump’’ and kept driving, a prosecutor said Tuesday at Park’s arraignment.
The witness who called 911 heard not only the crash but Steele “screaming for help’’ around 4:45 a.m. on Feb. 28, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Radu Brestyan said.
The 77-year-old Steele, who was widely recognized around Cambridge for nurturing the city’s pigeons from her wheelchair, was still conscious when paramedics first reached the scene, near 357 Columbia St. She remained on life support at Massachusetts General Hospital for nearly two weeks before succumbing to what a medical examiner called complications from blunt force trauma, according to police.
Park, 62, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of reckless driving and leaving the scene of an accident that caused injury and death. State motor vehicle records show he was found guilty of drunken driving in 1991 and lost his license for six months, but Park had a clean driving record in the years that followed. According to the police report, Park is a Somerville city employee.
In Cambridge District Court, Judge Roanne Sragow released Park on $1,000 bail and ordered him not to drive while the case is pending, conditions sought by prosecutors and agreed to by Park’s lawyer. Authorities previously suspended Park’s license indefinitely on March 3.
With his silver hair neatly combed, Park looked down silently during his arraignment and left court without speaking to reporters. His lawyer, Edward Krippendorf, declined to comment. Park is due back June 10.
“They let the guy go on $1,000 bail. That’s nice. I wish Dorothy could come home,’’ Dorothy Steele’s brother said, his throat catching.
At 81, Allan Steele said he found it too difficult to ride the series of buses and trains needed to reach the court — which has been housed in Medford since 2009 — from his Quincy home. He said in a phone interview that he was anguished to learn that she was initially alert and suffering after being hit.
“She wasn’t at all [alert] in the hospital. When I went to see her she was just laying there,’’ said her brother, who visited her three times while she was in critical care.
He said he found it difficult to believe Park allegedly felt only a bump.
“I’d call him a liar to his face,’’ said Steele, an Air Force veteran and retired draftsman.
The first Cambridge police officer to arrive on scene found paramedics crouched around Dorothy Steele, who lay curled in the fetal position on the southbound side of Columbia. The trail of debris — including mangled parts from her wheelchair and pieces of greenish-blue metal and plastic from a vehicle — indicated to Officer Christopher Sullivan of the city’s traffic-enforcement unit that whoever hit Steele had struck her head on and continued north, Sullivan wrote in a report filed in court.
Working with other investigators, Sullivan sifted through footage from cameras at two businesses a block away — a can return center and an auto-repair shop — and discovered a greenish-blue late-1990s Taurus that appeared to have a damaged left headlight and was continuing north at a high speed, Sullivan wrote.
Collecting still more surveillance footage, police followed a mile-and-a-half trail to Park’s Somerville Avenue home March 2. He acknowledged that the car was his and said he had been having trouble sleeping the previous Saturday night into Sunday morning, so he went for a drive and smoked a cigar, Sullivan wrote.
“I got drowsy and closed my eyes and felt a bump,’’ Park allegedly admitted, before Sullivan stopped Park to read him his Miranda rights, and Park asked for his lawyer.
When Cambridge police examined the car later with a search warrant, they found evidence under the hood of a recent repair to the left headlight, Sullivan wrote.
Kristen Emack, a photographer who befriended Steele along her regular bird-feeding route and lives a few doors down from the crash site, said she was grateful to investigators for their work.
“I think it’s astounding that the Cambridge police could piece together everything so quickly,’’ Emack said. “I was so worried that Dorothy appeared like somebody who wasn’t important in the community at the time that this all happened, and I just feel very grateful that they took her injuries and ultimately her death [so] seriously.’’
Like many of Dorothy Steele’s admirers around the city, Emack did not initially know how many others had also connected with the woman. But an online fund-raiser she started to help Allan Steele with funeral expenses quickly raised the full amount from 148 donors.
On March 28, Dorothy Steele’s ashes were laid to rest in a family plot in Everett, with Emack and others gathered around Steele’s brother near the grave. At the end of the row, the two lead investigators on the case, Sullivan and Officer Cameron Deane, stood sentinel in the rain.
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at eric.moskowitz@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeMoskowitz.
