Posted on 04/05/2015 5:28:43 PM PDT by Jack Hydrazine
A woman died and her husband was injured after they drove off the ramp to the demolished Cline Avenue bridge, which has been closed since 2009.
Zohra Hussain, a 51-year-old woman from Chicago, died of burns at the closed Riley Road exit of Cline Avenue, according to the Lake County coroner's office.
Her husband, Iftikhar Hussain, 64, survived the plunge of 37.5 feet off an elevated section of highway.
He was able to get out of their 2014 Nissan Sentra after it smashed into the ground below, on property owned by BP. But the car erupted into flame while his wife was still inside.
Barriers block the long-gone bridge, but Hussain drove around them.
"The Cline Avenue bridge is marked with numerous barricades including orange barrels and cones, large wood signs stating ROAD CLOSED with orange striped markings," Lake County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Patricia Van Til said. "There are concrete barricades across the road to further indicate the road is closed."
The couple appears to have been on their way to visit family since they had food in the vehicle, a police investigator said. They were from Chicago and were likely unfamiliar with the area.
The driver was believed to have been following GPS navigation that told him to continue on Cline Avenue, and was apparently paying more attention to the navigation system than what was in front of him, according to a police investigator.
The coroner's office was called out to 129th Avenue north of Riley Road in East Chicago at around 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Zohra Hussain was pronounced dead at 11:25 a.m.
Iftikhar Hussain was taken to Methodist Hospital Northlake in Gary, where he was listed in stable condition.
The tragedy isn't the first at the Cline Avenue bridge, which collapsed during construction in 1982, killing 14 construction workers and injuring 16 more.
In 2009, it was closed after decades of heavy semi-trucks hauling steel coil out of the Indiana Harbor steel mills caused it to deteriorate. In 2010, the Indiana Department of Transportation condemned the bridge.
Then-Gov. Mitch Daniels promised to swiftly rebuild the bridge, which had served the Midwest's largest refinery and the biggest steelmaking complex in North America, and gave Chicago residents an easy route to visit casinos in East Chicago and Gary. But the state reneged after deciding a replacement bridge would be too costly.
Plans to build a privately financed toll bridge have dragged on for years. Construction of a new bridge over the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal is supposed to begin this spring.
Back in 2008 or so they realigned exit 5 route 84 east in NY state.
The new exit is a big sweeping curve.
The previous exit was a straight ramp which had idiots pulling bonehead moves like trying to pass traffic by blowing down the offramp and back up the onramp.
The first day the new offramp was open, they ditch witched the old ramp, slammed in a guardrail in record time across it, and even put a humongous yellow sign reading in foot and a half tall lettering “RAMP CLOSED”.
Truck driver, late afternoon with the sun at his back so sunglare was not an issue, gets to the brand new sign
GPS says “ exit right” which he dutifully did.
Right over the guardrail and through the impossible to miss sign.
His words when the cops showed up: “but my GPS said..”
Fatal fascinating with hardware. seen it in the military.
“Barriers block the long-gone bridge, but Hussain drove around them. “
Too bad they had already reproduced.
Reminds me of an episode of The Office where Michael and Dwight drive into the lake while listening to Siri.
As an aside...I hate Siri. She doesn’t say please.
Sorry for the above mention. Ya beat me!!
I should have read the whole thread before posting. :)
Love “The Office” reference. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the headline.
“turn down”
even though he drove around the barricades and ignored the signs?
You mean the pictures that are dated 2008.
The date on your imagery is 2008.
The road was closed in 2009.
Exactly! Even with GPS, people have to realize they're going to find a road closed now and then!
Thanks for posting JH.
s, ping....
“I have always loved you”
LOL
CC
Few people use the error reporting system.
https://mapreporter.navteq.com/#dashboard
https://my.garmin.com/mapErrors/report.faces
Dear G-d, am I a member of the last generation that can navigate a frikkin’ car?!
Leave it to the crooked and incompetent Illinois politics to leave a closed bridge open and un-barricaded to potential traffic since 2009. Even in corrupt Illinois they have Jersey barriers don’t they that not only deter but prevent traffic? We used enough of them in Iraq.
One more indication about the decline of a USA that was once about accomplishments of the best and brightest, instead of crooked politics. I’m old enough to remember when we put a man on the moon and did lots of other stuff that we no longer do.
Ooops, make that Indiana, not Illinois.
It was apparently the will of allah.
He could have been trying to kill his wife.
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