7 die on I-20 near Longview
Posted on 07/22/2002 6:08:06 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
7 die on I-20 near Longview
07/21/2002
Seven people died in a head-on collision involving a minivan, a sport utility vehicle and a tractor-trailer rig traveling on Interstate 20 just west of Longview on Sunday evening. The east-west thoroughfare was shut down for 3 1/2 hours.
The dead included two of three 3-year-old triplets. Victims were from California, Louisiana and Addison, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
RICARDO P. BRAZZIELL / AP Rescue workers comb through the grisly wreckage near Longview. |
The accident occurred about 5:45 p.m. on a stretch of I-20 about 115 miles east of Dallas in Gregg County, DPS troopers in Tyler said.
"It was a tragic scene," said Longview Justice of the Peace Arthur Fort, a police officer and justice of the peace for three decades. "I haven't seen this much damage and this many fatalities in my 30 years."
Amateur video showed the two passenger vehicles, both reduced to crumpled heaps of metal, lying upside down near the jackknifed semi.
DPS Sgt. Richard Brown in Longview said a Ford Explorer driven by a woman from Addison crossed the median into the eastbound lane. Authorities were investigating what caused the driver to apparently lose control.
It struck head-on a Dodge Caravan carrying seven members of a family one person from the Shreveport area and six from California, Sgt. Brown said.
The force of the impact pushed the Caravan, which had Louisiana license plates, into a tanker truck, he said.
The lone occupant of the Ford and six people in the van, including two of the triplets, died, authorities said. Driver's licenses from California and Louisiana were found among those in the van.
The seventh minivan passenger a girl who was the only one of the triplets to survive was taken by helicopter to Children's Medical Center in Dallas in critical condition, the DPS said.
The DPS identified the dead from the minivan as driver Ira Salone of Shreveport, La.; Shanae Jackson, 10; Marisha Jackson, 14; Belinda Jackson, 48, Tevin Jackson, 3; Tyler Jackson, 3. Tatyana Jackson, 3, was the survivor.
The driver of the Ford was identified as Kyong Leingang, 54, of Addison.
The driver of the truck, who swerved and jackknifed in an attempt to minimize the impact, was not injured, authorities said. His identity was not released.
Ira Salone was the great-grandmother of all of the children and had custody of all of them. The children's mother lives in California. They had all recently moved to Shreveport. Belinda Jackson is Ira's daughter and a great-aunt of the children.
As authorities cleared debris from the highway, lanes in both directions were closed until about 9:30 p.m. Traffic was rerouted to side roads, including State Highway 31, which is under construction, officials said.
Melissa Allen, 35, a paramedic on her way from her home in North Richland Hills to teach an emergency medical dispatch class in Longview, was stuck in traffic.
"I got stopped at about 5:40 p.m. My hotel was literally four exits down," she said. "I finally got there at 8:40 p.m."
Other motorists got out of cars and walked to the accident site, she said.
"If I had been the first on the scene I would have helped," she said. "But I was too far back. When they're working a scene like that, they need you out of the way."
Sgt. R.P. Johnson of the Louisiana State Police in Shreveport said his agency had notified some of the next of kin.
At least 33 people have been killed this year in accidents along I-20.
The most recent accident occurred July 9, when four people died when their Lincoln Navigator rolled over about 50 miles from Odessa.
Five people died June 24 when a church-chartered bus carrying youths from Garland to a church camp in Ruston, La., crashed into an overpass pillar near Terrell, east of Dallas.
Two Shreveport, La., women were killed June 23 when their family's sport utility vehicle was struck from behind, veered off I-20 in Balch Springs and rolled over on the median.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sounds like another sleepy driver nodding off at the wheel. Awful for everybody else involved.
You are correct in that there could have been any number of causes for the woman to cross the median, and it is probably best to withhold judgement until all the investigations are completed. But invariably, the fault always seems to lie at the feet of the person who crossed the median first. Whether the reason for the accident is medical or mechanical in nature, or simply that the driver fell asleep, is irrelevant. The fact is that simple lack of preparation, failure to do proper maintenance, or carelessness on the part of one driver driving a bloody big heavy rolling juggernaut always seems to be the cause of the snuffing out of innocent lives in cases like this. And that just makes me a little bit nuts every time I hear about it.
Sometimes I think that drivers should be subject to the same sort of ongoing anal exam that pilots endure in order to become and remain pilots, or even be subject to the comprehensive testing that truck drivers have to get in order to hold a CDL.
Rant over.
Another picture of rescue delayed. There have been many -- the copter that crashed on Mt. Hood, another delayed on Mt. Rainier, the train that crashed in Sicily where there were no access roads.
Pr 29:1 He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
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