Motor Vehicle Accidents

Published on: February 27, 2014

Government Employees Among the Dead and Injured in Hawaii Plane Crash

A small plane fell to the ground and exploded in flames shortly after takeoff on Wednesday from Hawaii’s Lanai Island. The crash killed three people and left three others injured. A Maui County spokesman reported that the incident occurred at approximately 9:30 p.m. Wednesday evening about one mile from Lanai Airport. According to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor, the twin-engine Piper PA31 burned upon impact with the ground. Authorities believe that everyone aboard the aircraft at the time of the crash has been accounted for.

The names of the individuals who died in the crash have not been released, but Maui County did state that the pilot and two Department of Planning employees were deceased. A nursing supervisor at Queen’s Medical Center and the county reported that two other Department of Planning workers are in critical condition and the deputy attorney for Corporate Counsel is in serious condition. All three survivors were transported by helicopters to the Honolulu hospital. Their names have not yet been released. This group of six individuals was staffing a meeting in Lanai earlier Wednesday evening and they chartered a Maui Air return flight. All three survivors sustained burn injuries. Fire crews located the airplane in a field of grass about a mile southwest of the airport.

The trip from Lanai was a routine one for the governmental officials aboard the plane that crashed. According to a state senator, these individuals flew this route at least twice a month. The National Transportation Safety Board will be conducting an investigation into the cause of the crash, with assistance from the FAA.

3 dead, 3 injured in Hawaii plane crash www.miamiherald.com February 27, 2014

Published on: February 21, 2014

Icy Roadways, Speed, and Sun Glare Contribute to Pennsylvania Turnpike Pileup

by Friedland | Carmona

One side of the ice-coated Pennsylvania Turnpike outside Philadelphia was completely blocked last week due to two major pileups and a number of smaller fender-benders that involved both tractor-trailers and other cars. At least thirty people were injured and traffic was backed up for hours. It was just after 8:30 a.m. last Friday when the eastbound crashes were reported to authorities. The crashes occurred in the middle of rush hour traffic and not long after a storm that brought about a foot of snow to the area. Speed restrictions were imposed during the snow storm, but those restrictions were lifted at 6:00 a.m. The roads were still very slick when rush-hour drivers traveled on Friday, leading people to question whether the roads were adequately treated during the night. State police also believe sun glare may have played a role in the crashes.

The string of crashes created a five-mile traffic jam between the Bensalem and Willow Grove exits of the turnpike. It took authorities until the middle of the afternoon to clear up the road and officials did not reopen the turnpike in both directions until close to 4:00 p.m. One motorist who was stuck in the traffic jam said he saw about thirty damaged vehicles around him. He stated cars were turned around, facing the opposite direction of travel, gas tanks were cracked open, and the road was covered in glass and plastic. Ambulances transported thirty people from the scene of the crashes, but it was believed that no one sustained major injuries. Many of the injured were seen at two local hospitals.

State police continued to investigate the cause of the crashes; a spokesman stated some of the likely contributors were icy conditions, excessive speed, and sun glare. Trooper Adam Reed said, “The road looked wet, when it reality it was patches of ice.” Turnpike spokesman Bill Capone said that speed restrictions were lifted at 6:00 a.m. because road crews reported that road conditions had improved enough to return to normal speeds. Part of the state police investigation will be to determine whether the road conditions changed after the decision to return to normal, posted speed limits was made. Motorists described the turnpike as icy and slippery. One of the drivers of a vehicle that was struck stated the turnpike had “pieces of ice that were never removed or salted.” That driver also stated he was driving at about 40-45 mph, but other drivers were flying by him at 65-70 mph. Another driver said he was surprised by the road conditions because “normally the turnpike is one of the first roads that’s cleared, but today I was driving on solid ice.”

Trucks, dozens of cars crash on Pa. turnpike www.palmbeachpost.com February 14, 2014

Published on: February 13, 2014

NYC Truck-Bus Crash Kills One, Injures at Least Four Others

by Friedland | Carmona

An allegedly stolen box truck collided with a city bus at a Manhattan intersection early Wednesday morning, which caused both vehicles to land on the sidewalk and crash into scaffolding. Police received a 911 call at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday reporting a stolen delivery truck. Just moments later, the delivery truck was traveling south on Seventh Avenue when it hit the bus driving east on 14th Street. Upon impact, both vehicles crashed into scaffolding surrounding a twelve-story commercial building. Authorities reported that the city bus driver, forty-nine-year-old Hillside, New Jersey resident William Pena, was killed and at least four others were injured.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Kevin Ortiz stated that among the injured were a bus passenger and two individuals on the street, including a coffee cart vendor. According to reports, these individuals were all hospitalized. Charges are pending against the driver of the allegedly stolen truck, a twenty-two-year-old who is at Bellevue Hospital being treated for injuries sustained in the crash. Before crashing into the bus, the truck struck a person riding a scooter, who police say was also injured and transported to a local hospital.

The MTA reported that Pena was the first city bus driver to die in a motor vehicle crash in more than fourteen years. MTA Chairman Thomas Prendergast stated, “Our thoughts and prayers are with Mr. Pena’s family, and we are working closely with law enforcement to ensure the perpetrator of this crime is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” A witness who was standing on the same block but facing the opposite direction stated that when he heard the crash, it sounded like the scraping noise made by a snowplow. When Craig Ydolly spun around, he saw the scaffolding falling down on the truck and city bus and he also observed an injured individual on the ground. Ydolly stated that the bus was leaking gas. Jose Cherrez, the superintendent of a building just one block from the accident scene, stated that “it sounded like an explosion. I heard the ambulances about 10 minutes later.” Following the fatal crash, Seventh Avenue between 13th and 15th streets and West 14th Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues were closed. Bus service was rerouted around the scene; subway service was not affected by the crash.

1 dead, at least 4 injured in NYC bus-truck crash www.palmbeachpost.com February 12, 2013

Published on: January 25, 2014

Lake-Effect Snow Contributes to Massive, Deadly Pileup in Indiana

by Friedland | Carmona

Interstate 94 in northern Indiana was a scene of mangled, burned cars despite the snow that blanketed the ground and blew through the air Thursday evening. Some of the vehicles that lay among the wreckage were crushed between folded semi-tractors, so entangled that responders found it difficult to tell them apart. It only took seconds for over forty vehicles to create a mile-long pile of debris in the whiteout conditions that plagued the evening commute. Victims of the massive pileup were screaming out as emergency responders arrived on scene and attempted to assist the injured as quickly as possible in the freezing cold weather conditions. Three people died and nearly two dozen were injured in the horrific string of crashes.

Coolspring Township Fire Chief Mick Pawlick, a member of one of the first volunteer crews to arrive on scene, said in a news conference Friday, “It was such a devastating scene, you don’t know where to start. There were people in cars that you couldn’t even see.” Rescue crews were forced to quickly prioritize the victims. They had to ask themselves the questions of who needed their assistance first and who could not be saved even with their assistance. As victims were extricated from their vehicles, firefighters worked rapidly to keep everyone warm. Responders also tried to keep victims’ minds off of the tragic situation that they had just experienced.

The series of crashes, which occurred near Michigan City, about sixty miles south of Chicago, were preceded by an abrupt wave of heavy lake-effect know that caught drivers off-guard. It took less than one minute for dozens of cars and numerous tractor-trailers to crash into each other and pile up. Those killed in the string of collisions were Jerry Dalrymple, a Chicago resident, and Thomas Wolma and his wife, Marilyn, Michigan residents. More than twenty people sustained injures, including one who remained in a hospital in critical condition on Friday. One of the survivors, Jeffrey Rennell, was traveling from Chicago to Michigan when his Ford Explorer began to bounce off other vehicles around him. His twisted, mangled SUV was ultimately discovered on top of another vehicle, “encased in semis.” Rennell’s extrication was described as one of the worst that night. Once he was removed from his SUV, he was airlifted to a Chicago hospital, was treated for a broken leg, and was released. Indiana State Police will undertake an investigation of the massive pileup, which may take months to complete.

Mangled metal, victims’ screams mark Ind. pileup www.palmbeachpost.com January 24, 2013

Published on: January 20, 2014

Man Finds Older Brother’s Plane Wreckage in Idaho

by Friedland | Carmona

As Dellon Smith discovered the wreckage of his older brother’s airplane resting on the side of a central Idaho mountain, he started running. Smith sprinted in his snowshoes to the pile of snow-covered rubble located on a steep slope and ended the six week search for the missing plane and people aboard. After Smith arrived where the plane was resting, he asked the rest of his twelve-member search crew to give him a few minutes alone at the site. Smith said, “You’re just so happy to have found it, yet you’re so sad because you found it. I just enjoyed the peace of being there, and finally getting answers for our whole family.”

After the wreckage was discovered, a recovery team was dispatched; however, bad weather conditions forced them to turn back. According to Valley County Sheriff Patti Bolen, a meeting was to be held within days after the first recovery attempt to brainstorm options for getting to the remote crash site and bringing out the five people who were killed. Sheriff Bolen stated snow mobiles will be necessary to reach the site of the wreckage and different routes are being considered. The small plane crashed in early December, taking the lives of the fifty-one-year-old pilot, Dale Smith, his son, Daniel Smith and his wife, Sheree Smith, and his daughter, Amber Smith and her fiancé, Jonathan Norton. The plane was traveling from eastern Oregon, where the family had spent Thanksgiving, to Montana, where Daniel and Sheree Smith lived, when it disappeared December 1 about one-hundred-fifty miles northeast of Boise.

Dellon Smith, along with his other search crew members, used a large tracked vehicle to travel into the backcountry. The team then spread out across the terrain. Upon arrival at the crash site, Smith said he tried to determine how the crash occurred; it appeared that there was a violent impact. Smith stated, “It was very sudden. Since they were in the clouds, they probably didn’t know what hit them.” The official search for the airplane was suspended in mid-December, but family, friends, and a large online community continued their search by using satellite and other photos. Before the accident, Dale Smith reported engine trouble and radioed for coordinates to possible landing sites. Not long after Smith reached out for help, controllers lost both radio and radar contact.

Brother describes finding sibling’s plane wreckage, www.palmbeachpost.com January 12, 2013

Published on: January 13, 2014

More than Forty Vehicles Involved in Idaho Pileup, at Least Ten Injured

by Friedland | Carmona

Icy roads mixed with quickly moving, heavy fog created the perfect recipe for disaster on a busy highway near Boise, Idaho during Thursday morning’s commute. The weather led to a pileup of more than forty vehicles, including a logging truck, and at least ten people were injured. According to authorities, the pileup crash occurred while emergency responders were attempting to clear a prior accident on Interstate 84, one of Idaho’s main east-west highways.

Idaho State Police Captain Bill Gardiner said, “Within a three- or four-minute timeframe, the fog rolled in.” Witnesses told authorities they could only see thirty to forty feet in front of them. A spokeswoman for the Idaho State Police stated that a driver in a black Subaru attempted to move to the right lane and away from the earlier wreck, but hit a silver Subaru in the process. A logging truck then struck the black Subaru, which caused a chain-reaction crash in the westbound lanes of Interstate 84 that also included four tractor trailers. Ten people were ultimately taken by ambulance to local hospitals, including the driver of the black Subaru. That driver was seriously injured and had to be extricated from his car, which had been severely crushed in the crash. The spokeswoman said it took crews about an hour to remove the man from his car. The driver’s injuries, which included a leg injury, were not considered life-threatening.

The highway was reopened around 2 p.m. Thursday, but police were still investigating the crash that afternoon and no citations had been issued. Sleeting rain that fell early Thursday morning caused a number of crashes in and around Boise. One of those accidents occurred around 6:30 a.m. on Interstate 84. An Idaho Transportation Department response vehicle was parked on the far left side of the road waiting for a tow truck to arrive to take a vehicle from the accident scene when the chain-reaction crash began. A separate crash happened not far ahead of the pileup due to what Idaho State Police believe was a driving becoming distracted by the scene of the pileup behind him. That secondary accident involved three to five vehicles and caused the accident scene to stretch over about a mile of the highway.

At least 10 injured in Idaho interstate pileup, www.miamiherald.com January 9, 2013

Published on: January 1, 2014

Ohio Bus Passengers Bring Suit Against Greyhound

by Friedland | Carmona

Greyhound Lines, Inc. is facing a federal civil lawsuit brought by three passengers aboard a company bus that flipped over and crashed in Ohio in September. The three passengers who brought the lawsuit are Winston-Salem, NC resident Tyrone Allen, Detroit resident Rayvar Williams, and Halladay, TN resident Lorianne Stevens. The attorney representing the passengers in the lawsuit is Geoffrey Fieger, a lawyer from suburban-Detroit.

The three plaintiffs filed the lawsuit last Friday and requested a jury trial. They allege that Greyhound was negligent and inflicted emotional distress. The Greyhound bus was traveling from Cincinnati to Detroit with fifty-one people aboard on September 14 when it veered off Interstate 75 around twenty-five miles north of Cincinnati. The bus struck a fence and tree. Over thirty people were said to be injured in the accident. The driver of the bus, Dwayne Garrett, was cited by authorities for operating a vehicle without reasonable control. Alexandra Pedrini, a spokeswoman for Greyhound, stated Monday that the company will not discuss a pending lawsuit.

3 passengers file federal suit in Ohio bus crash, www.miamiherald.com December 30, 2013

Published on: December 31, 2013

Two Men on their way to Heat Game Struck by Bus at Omni Station

by Friedland | Carmona

Two men were hit by a bus at the Omni Station in Miami earlier this month. A forty-four-year-old man and a seventy-four-year-old man, accompanied by his twelve-year-old grandson, were on their way to a Miami Heat basketball game when the two men were hit by a bus at the driveway leading into the bus station, according to Miami-Dade police. A security guard quickly arrived on scene and attempted to keep everyone calm as they awaited rescue crews.

Lt. Ignatius Carroll, with the Miami-Dade police, stated that “the security guard who was at the station ran over and found a 44-year-old male that was part way under the bus and going into shock. He was able to keep this patient calm until fire rescue arrived.” After rescue crews arrived, the forty-four-year-old man was carefully pulled out from under the bus. He was then taken to Ryder Trauma Center with what appeared to be head trauma and a mangled hand. According to authorities, there were twenty individuals riding the bus at the time the accident occurred.

Two struck by bus at Omni Station in Miami, www.miamiherald.com December 16, 2013

Published on: December 18, 2013

New Mexico Judge Awards Family $80 Million in Sand Suffocation Case

by Friedland | Carmona

A New Mexico judge awarded close to $80 million to the family of a New Mexico woman who was killed in 2002 when she was buried alive in sand that fell from a tractor-trailer after it struck her car. Laura Miera, an Albuquerque resident, was suffocated as teachers and students at a nearby school desperately attempted to pull her out of the sand. Miera had just dropped off her fourteen-year-old daughter at the nearby middle school and was sitting at a traffic light when the truck exited Interstate 40 and came quickly at her.

The truck, which was owned by Albuquerque Redi-Mix, shoved Meira’s car to the curb, the truck rolled over, and Miera became trapped as the semi’s open load of sand dumped down on her. Teachers, students, and other bystanders attempted to dig Miera out by her hand and one counselor attempted to comfort Miera as her car filled up with sand. Jacob Vigil, the attorney who represented the Miera family throughout their ten-year legal battle, stated, “It was devastating. The school counselor was holding her hand, praying while the sand rose above her head, and the counselor just kept saying ‘Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.’ She squeezed for a while until she died.”

According to information that came out during the case, the truck involved in the crash was operating with an expired registration, three brakes out of adjustment, and a driver who had faced two DWI charges prior to being hired by Albuquerque Redi-Mix. Although the judgment will never replace Miera, Vigil hopes it will lead to tougher regulations and legitimate consequences for trucking companies that are cited or fined for failing to maintain safe operations.

Judge awards $80 million in sand suffocation death, www.palmbeachpost.com December 10, 2013

Published on: December 16, 2013

One Dead and Massive Pileup on Pennsylvania Turnpike

by Friedland | Carmona

An accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike last Sunday resulted in one death and a fifty-car pileup. It was just before 12:30 p.m. in southeastern Pennsylvania when the first wreck occurred. One of the individuals involved in that wreck exited his car to check on the other people involved in the crash. He was then struck by a passing vehicle. Authorities pronounced that man dead on the scene. Approaching vehicles then began to pile up along the highway. Many vehicles were either damaged or were stranded in the middle of the highway. There was no word on any injuries sustained by other drivers or passengers.

Authorities arrived on scene and eventually closed off the westbound lanes of the turnpike. Drivers were detoured around the accident scene. According to reports, some drivers in the area were left sitting on the roadway for more than four hours. Some pictures from the scene showed people exiting their vehicles and talking to others stranded alongside them. Weather forecasters had predicted less snow for the area than the storm actually ended up dropping. According to a spokesman from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, road crews were caught off guard by the large amount of snow. The pileup is reported to be the largest in a string of car crashes caused by the huge storm that hit the northeast. The storm brought nearly six inches of snow to Pennsylvania alone.

At least one dead in 50-car pileup on Pennsylvania Turnpike, www.palmbeachpost.com December 09, 2013