Man struck after his car hits semi

Vehicles lined the sides of Spinosa Street in Reynoldsburg on Friday night as family and friends gathered to mourn the death of Almamy Coumbassa in a tragic accident more than 12 hours earlier on eastbound Interstate 70 on Columbus’ East Side.

The driver side door of Coumbassa’s Honda Accord was disabled but he was uninjured just before 4:50 a.m. Friday after he collided with a tractor-trailer driven by Walter Charles, 57, of Lafayette, Louisiana, below the I-270 overpass while apparently trying to change lanes, Columbus police said.

But when he got out of the car’s front passenger door and tried to cross from the middle lane to the right shoulder, he ran into the side of a tractortrailer driven by Jeffrey Hickle, 55, of Arcanum, that was passing in the right lane, police said.

Coumbassa was taken to OhioHealth Grant Medical Center, where he died in surgery. It was the eighth traffic fatality in the city this year.

To those gathered at his home, Coumbassa was not a statistic; they called his death a “great loss” to the community of immigrants in the Columbus area from Guinea in West Africa.

Coumbassa was a husband and father of two boys and two girls, said childhood friend Mouctar Barry, of Pataskala. He came to the U.S. from Guinea more than 17 years ago and was studying electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State University while holding down a job.

Ismael Bangoura, of the Short North, attended the same high school as Coumbassa and Barry in Guinea. He said Coumbassa came here for the same reason his friends had — “Looking for happiness, a better life.”

Coumbassa was gifted in mathematics and physics. He enjoyed watching soccer, especially the Columbus Crew, friends said. Baungoura described him as being relentlessly positive.

“We’re going to miss him, definitely,” Barry said. “He was very big in the community. He’s going to be missed by everybody.”