Two Seniors Killed in Crash

The victims of a fatal car accident that happened on Tuesday afternoon between Armstrong and Enderby have been identified as two men in their mid-80s from the Vernon area.

The men were reportedly long-time friends; their names are not being released until family has been notified.

The pair was in a mini-van traveling northbound when the accident, which happened near the railroad tracks close to Stepney Road and Back Enderby Road, occurred.

Early indications show the mini-van hit a concrete post on the side of the road; it then crossed into the path of a southbound pick-up truck.

The occupants of the truck are a couple from the Sicamous area.
The 66-year-old female passenger in the truck remains in hospital with injuries.

Provided By:thevancouversun.com

Trucking Fatality

"It is a really bad situation," said INDOT Cambridge City sub-district operations manager Jerome Swim, who added that he should have results of the investigation in the next couple of days. "We are trying to find something to do. Everybody you talk to either knows someone who was almost in an accident or has had it happen to them."


Mike "Doug" Robbins, 44, of Williamsburg died early Tuesday when the pickup truck he was driving was hit by a semi driven by Linda Lou Phillips of Rock Island, Ill., that was turning left into the entrance to Love's Truck Stop.


Robbins' pickup was pinned between the turning semi and a semi driven by Edward Bacon of Georgia that was at the entrance to the truck stop.

Robbins was dead when authorities arrived on the scene. Phillips was cited for failing to yield the right of way, and Wayne County Sheriff Jeff Cappa said information has been forwarded to the prosecutor's office for further review.


According to Indiana State Police records, there had been 10 accidents prior to Tuesday in the area of U.S. 35 and Flatley Road since 2007, but Robbins was the first fatality. By comparison, there have been five accidents at U.S. 35 and Interstate 70, four at U.S. 35 and Ind. 38, four at U.S. 35 and Salisbury Road, and two at U.S. 35 and Tingler Road.


On Wednesday, Cappa said he was working with INDOT and other area leaders to try to cut down the number of accidents at the entrance to the truck stop.


"I am concerned," said Cappa, who has been sheriff for less than a week. "I spoke with Mayor (Sally) Hutton and I spoke with (Richmond Police Department Maj.) Kevin Wampler and Mr. Swim from INDOT, and we are trying to put together data so that we can present it and see what we can do collectively to get things changed."


Potential changes include the addition of warning signs or a change in speed limit.
Cappa said he has issued a directive to his department to increase enforcement in the area in hopes of reducing the potential for accidents until the INDOT investigation is complete.

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Crash Hero Dies

Friends and family regard the victim of the 100-car pile-up on I-94 as a hero. The man was hit by a car when he got out of his semi to help other drivers during a blizzard.

Lowell Balk died early Tuesday morning at Essentia Hospital. The 50-year-old was from Walcott, North Dakota. Witnesses and friends consider Balk to be very brave.

Highway Patrol officers say they recommend people stay in their vehicles in a situation like the pile up Lowell found himself in. But, after talking with people who knew him, he just couldn't stand the idea of doing nothing when he saw others in need.

That personality trait became even more evident in his last moments at Essentia Health.
There were uneasy times for the people at the I-94 pile. Lt. Bryan Niewind of the Highway Patrol says, "When you talk to the people that were out in the accidents, our troopers that were on scene say you couldn't even see to the end of your hood."

Maybe it was the ten years of truck driving that made Lowell more at home on the road, or just insatiable need to help out. "He wasn't involved in a crash himself. He had a cell phone and stuff with him and he was just trying to see if other people needed some help," Lt. Niewind says.

Lowell was checking on the drivers behind his rig, when another semi, highway patrol officers say was driving too fast for the conditions, struck him and hit 15 other vehicles before it came to a stop.
Niewind tells us, "I think he had just massive trauma from being struck by a large vehicle."

Paramedics were already on the scene. Lowell, who was seriously injured, was taken to Essentia Health, where he hung on for several days.

Lowell's heroism didn't end out on the highway. In his last act of life, he gave one of his organs. Friends of the family say he died about 1:00 Tuesday morning, after being taken off life support.
His son helped wave the donor flag over the hospital. In situations where many would have locked up in fear, Lowell found a way to keep barreling through and help those in need.

Lowell's funeral has been set for Friday at 11:00 a.m. at Walcott Lutheran church. A visitation is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Fredrickson Funeral Chapel in Kindred.
There were 4 other non-life threatening injuries that day.

Provided By:valleynewslive.com

Four Car Pile Up

A DANGEROUS Sebastopol roundabout needs to be upgraded, residents say, after a four-vehicle crash yesterday afternoon.

The crash, which involved a truck and three cars, occurred at 2.50pm at the intersection of Albert and Bridge streets.

A semi-trailer and a Mazda 121 collided at the roundabout, before the Mazda speared across the median strip.

It then struck a Jeep four-wheel-drive, which in turn was pushed into a Holden Barina.
The two elderly female occupants of the Mazda were taken to Ballarat Base Hospital for observation.
North-bound traffic was diverted from the scene for about one hour.

According to VicRoads statistics, there have been two crashes at the intersection since April 2005 resulting in serious injuries.

Bystanders told The Courier the intersection was dangerous and there had been several accidents at the roundabout.

One man, who only wished to be known as Darren, called on the intersection to be fixed.
“The road is not wide enough for both a truck and car to fit around it – they need to remove the roundabout and put in traffic lights,” he said.

“I think it’s one of the most dangerous and after this (crash) it should become a blackspot.”
A VicRoads spokes-woman said due to the installation of a roundabout and the low crash history, the authority considered the intersection to be operating satisfactorily.

“VicRoads will seek further information surrounding the crash before considering any future safety improvements,” she said.

Meanwhile, a man is in a serious condition after a crash at Parwan yesterday afternoon, where a 4WD was crushed against a tree with him pinned partially underneath it.

It occurred on the corner of the Bacchus Marsh and Geelong roads at 2.25pm.

Advanced life support paramedic Hugh Esler said the car had rolled and skidded into a tree side-on, with the 26-year-old thrown from the car.

He suffered multiple fractures to his legs, pelvis and arm and serious head injuries including a fractured skull.

“It was quite a difficult scene for us because there was also a gas leak from the car that needed to be contained,” Mr Esler said.

The car was lifted off the man after nearly an hour.
He was flown to The Alfred hospital in an induced coma.

Provided By: thecourier.com

A Dangerous Drive

A wicked burst of winter Tuesday sent cars and trucks sliding all over the highways and kept area police agencies busy for hours.

And two police officers suffered injuries when struck by a jackknifing semi in Van Buren County.

State police at the Bridgman post said I-94 was closed in both directions in Berrien County for about 45 minutes Tuesday afternoon while emergency crews cleaned up from crashes too numerous to count. Sgt. Ken High said Tuesday afternoon that fortunately the most serious injury from dozens of crashes in Berrien County was a broken leg.

High said two cars were involved in a crash on I-94 near mile marker 34 around 1:40 p.m. Both cars were traveling east when one rear-ended the other. Another crash happened around the same time on I-94 near the I-196 interchange.


“I don’t have details. I don’t have names. I don’t know how many accidents. We’ve just been so busy,” High said in a phone interview. “The lake effect snow came in, it started blowing, the roads got icy and visibility dropped.”

Deputy Chief Carl DeLand of the Benton Township Police Department said his officers handled four crashes in less than an hour when, starting around 1 p.m., there were near white-out conditions.

The weather-related accidents Benton Township police handled started at 12:55 p.m. on Red Arrow Highway at Roslin Road when Donnie Stamp, 32, of Coloma, lost control of his northbound car on Red Arrow and hit a utility pole.

Then at 1:13 p.m., a car driven by Peter Boumgarden, 27, of Grand Rapids was rear-ended by one driven by Kenneth Spoerl, 59, of Coloma, DeLand said. Both drivers were eastbound on I-94 near Roslin Road.

At the same time on I-94 near Territorial Road, Michael Hoover, 40, of Ellettsville, Ind., lost control of his eastbound car and hit a guard rail.

At 1:37 p.m., Maria Villegas, 42, of Benton Harbor lost control of her car while traveling west on Red Arrow Highway near Milo Street and collided with a semi truck that was stopped in the eastbound lane. The truck had stopped because another semi farther up the road was stuck at the top of the hill, DeLand said.

“That’s what we have so far. There might be more,” DeLand said. “That’s just our agency.”

DeLand said he does not believe any of the drivers in the crashes Benton Township handled went to the hospital.

“I don’t think any tickets were issued,” he said.

Robert Pelton of Watervliet said he found the Red Arrow Highway detour impassible after he exited from I-94.

“It looks like it’s wet, but it’s really icy,” he said of Red Arrow Highway on Tuesday afternoon.

Van Buren crash

Van Buren County Sheriff’s Deputy Duane Brigham suffered a dislocated shoulder while Paw Paw Police Sgt. Kirk Goodrich had a compound ankle fracture, Sheriff Dale Gribler reported.

“It could have been much worse. They had an angel looking out for them,” the sheriff said. Both men were taken to Bronson LakeView Hospital in Paw Paw, Gribler said.

State police Sgt. Tom Brower of the Paw Paw post said accidents and slide-offs forced the closure of a 10-mile stretch of I-94 in eastern Van Buren County for most of the afternoon, from Mattawan to 4 miles west of Paw Paw.

“They had a bunch of slide-offs and accidents,” Brower said. “It didn’t look that bad, and it was not that much snow, but it was just wet and it froze over.”

“It was just a flash freeze,” said the sheriff. “It was the ice.”

The two police officers were working on a traffic crash near Paw Paw and were about 20 feet apart when the semi’s driver lost control and the truck slid into the police officers’ path, Gribler said.

The semi driver is from Canada, Gribler said.

“He should have known better,” he said.

Provided By: heraldpalladium.com

Speeding leads to Truck Accident

A speeding car ran a stop light Tuesday afternoon in downtown Burlington and slammed into a truck, causing the pickup to flip into the air and over another vehicle, according to city police.

The wreck, at about 2:40 p.m. at Pearl and Willard streets, closed the intersection for about 40 minutes.
Police said the crash happened when a sedan "traveling at a high rate of speed" while heading east on Pearl Street ran the red light at Willard Street and struck the truck, which was traveling north. The impact caused the truck to flip over a car heading south on Willard, police said.

One of the drivers involved, Daelynn Fielders, 24, of Burlington, said the northbound pickup hurled over her Chevrolet Malibu and landed upside-down behind her.

The driver of the truck, Joel Fitzgerald, was taken to Fletcher Allen to be treated for minor injuries, said Terry Bailey, operations director at Burlington Schools, who arrived at the intersection after the wreck.

Fitzgerald, a school system employee, had been wearing a seat belt, Bailey said. Police said the other drivers, too, were wearing seat belts.

Rescue workers pulled Fitzgerald from the back window of his truck, Fielders added.
The driver of the Hyundai sedan that hit the truck did not appeared to be injured at the scene. He declined to identify himself or be interviewed.

The man's sedan and the truck appeared to be total losses; Fielders' Malibu suffered extensive damage to its front end.

Fielders sustained a scraped knee and a sore collarbone, she said.
She said the incident took place too quickly for her to fully analyze the sequence of events.
"I didn't have time to process it," she said.

Burlington police Cpl. Brent Navari said in a report that speed appeared to be a factor in the crash, which remained under investigation Tuesday evening.

Provided By: burlingtonfreepress.com

Most Deadly Year for Traffic

West Des Moines closed 2010 with twice as many traffic deaths as 2008 and 2009 combined, but police see no pattern in the fatal crashes, which happened all over the city.

“They were kind of spread out, and there wasn’t any one particular place where they occurred,” West Des Moines police Lt. Jim Barrett said. “There’s not even two in the same place.”

It was the deadliest of the past five years. There were four fatal accidents in West Des Moines in 2006, and four again in 2007.

In 2008, only one person was killed on the roads in West Des Moines city limits — a pedestrian who was hit on Interstate Highway 235.

Two were killed in 2009 — a motorcyclist who hit a deer in the 800 block of S. First Street and a driver whose vehicle was struck by a vehicle driven the wrong way on I-35.

In 2010, the number of fatal crashes jumped to eight, and they’ve all been since the beginning of June.

June 6: A 54-year-old Des Moines man was killed when he was thrown from his motorcycle while entering I-35 southbound and was hit by a semi.

June 19: A 55-year-old man from El Paso, Ill., was killed when his motorcycle crossed the median of I-80 into oncoming traffic and struck another vehicle in the eastbound lanes.

July 21: A 55-year-old man from State Center lost control of his motorcycle on the western Mixmaster and crashed as he tried to go from southbound I-35 to westbound I-80.

Aug. 7: A 38-year-old West Des Moines man was killed when he was driving northbound on 42nd Street, crossed the center line and ran head on into another vehicle.

Aug. 23: A 21-year-old Kansas man, a baseball player at Wichita University, was killed when his southbound vehicle crossed the median of I-35 and ran into a northbound semi-trailer.

Sept. 6: A 33-year-old Des Moines man was killed when his vehicle, westbound on I-235, took the exit ramp at 50th Street too fast and struck a concrete barrier on the west side of 50th.

Oct. 7: A 75-year-old Las Vegas woman was killed when sport utility vehicle rear-ended her slowed or stopped car in the triangle between the onramp and the eastbound lanes of I-235 at 50th Street.

Nov. 20: A 47-year-old West Des Moines man — Feisal Sayeed, a vice president at CB Richard Ellis/Hubbell Commercial and local civic leader — was killed when his sport utility vehicle left Highway 5 and rolled.
Six of 2010′s eight fatal crashes were on one of the big highways or interstates in West Des Moines, which makes sense to Barrett.

“The number of cars and the higher rate of speed leads to more serious crashes,” he said.
The first fatality of 2011 happened Sunday night on Grand Avenue, when a 43-year-old West Des Moines man crashed a car into a utility pole near the intersection of Grand and Vine Street.

Provided By: desmoinesregister.com