Pile-up of nearly 100 cars spans 5 miles of PA Turnpike

[redheadbaker]

I've been watching coverage of this off and on all day. The pile-up started around 8:30 a.m. on the turnpike just north of Philly. The road JUST reopened around 4:30. Thirty people were injured; it's a miracle no one was killed. Pics here.

www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20140215_Massive_pileup_on_PA_Turnpike.html

At least 30 people were injured, five seriously, in a multi-vehicle pileup Friday morning on the ice slickened Pennsylvania Turnpike between Bensalem and Willow Grove.

More than 40 vehicles - cars, trucks and tractor trailers - were involved in the two main crashes, which occurred in the eastbound lanes around 8:35 a.m., one mile west of the Bensalem exit. Police were forced to close the road in both directions, creating a miles-long traffic jam and turning the morning rush into an hours-long headache.

Trooper Adam Reed, of the Pennsylvania State Police, said they hope to have the turnpike open by 5 p.m.

There were two separate main accidents about two miles apart, said Bill Capone, chief of communications for the turnpike commission. The main accidents involved about 20 to 25 vehicles each, he said. At one point traffic was backed up five miles behind the accidents.

"The best we know is that we had 30 people transported to local hospitals," said Capone. He said the injuries did not appear to be life-threatening.

At Abington Memorial Hospital, 11 patients were being treated for minor injuries, but five others were listed as traumas, according to Cindy Taing, a hospital employee. None was life threatening.

Seven victims were taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, said Kathleen Smith, a spokesperson. By 3 p.m., four had been treated and released, and three victims were still being evaluated.

Doylestown Hospital received three patients, all with minor injuries, said Ron Watson, a spokesman.

John Kelly, chief of staff at Abington, said many patients had already been treated and released. Others were still undergoing tests, but, he said, "All patients are doing well."

Abington is the region's only major trauma center, but Kelly said they were dealing with smaller problems such as scrapes, bruises and back and neck injuries. One woman lost consciousness at the scene, but is "alert and speaking" at the hospital, he said.

Kelly said the lack of serious injuries "is a testament to the advances in vehicle safety technology. Things like seat belts and braking technology and airbags undoubtedly saved lives today."

Marge Brady, 65, was heading home to Bensalem after being stuck at her job as a rehabilitation nurse in Malvern for two days in the snow storm. She got caught in the middle of the pileup.

Brady sustained back and neck injuries, said her mother, May McDonough, 85. Rescuers had to lift her over the highway wall.

"She's hurting. She's hurting bad," McDonough said. "I'm just happy she's OK, as OK goes."

Brady's sisters, Denise Drybala and Ann Sacco, said Brady's silver Hyundai Elantra was sandwiched between two red trucks and a tractor trailer.

"She didn't hit anyone. She got hit four times," Drybala said. "She was in her lane, but there's nowhere to go."

Said McDonough of her daughter, "She doesn't have bad luck. She has no luck at all."

Tom Connell, 53, from Hatboro, was at the center of the second accident. A few hundred yards behind a tractor trailer collision, he was caught in the middle of a giant multi-car fender bender that occurred in the sudden backlash of the initial accident.

Irina Appelton was part of that chain reaction, too. Her black Jeep was rear-ended as she slammed on the breaks, she said. That caused her car to subsequently catapult into Connell's.

But details were tough to remember for Appelton, 52, from Glenside. Everything happened so quickly, and in the midst of the collisions, her airbag deployed, preventing her from seeing anything, she said.

What she did remember was that "the whole road was nothing but ice" before the collisions. As she picked pieces of her shattered tail lights out of her shoes, she said, "It's just really, really bad."

Appelton left her car - with its cracked lights and smashed front bumper - on the turnpike Friday for a tow truck. She gathered some items out of her car and left with her husband.

Connell was waiting with his car Friday afternoon. Around 1:30, a good Samaritan brought over a Wendy's cheeseburger.

"It's scary stuff," Connell said, shaking his head. "It's just one split second."

The first accident was at mile post 350, the second accident at mile post 348, about two miles west, Capone said. Both the east and westbound lanes were closed at one point so the westbound lane could be used by emergency vehicles to reach the scene.

"We didn't want traffic flying by our emergency personnel," Capone said.

Tow trucks were on the scene to remove the damaged vehicles. Kevin Wilson, operations manager at Rob's Automotive and Collision in Bristol, Bucks County, said the shop dispatched its entire fleet - 60 drivers - to help with the cleanup.

At one point there were so many helicopters viewing the scene that NBC10 reported a flight restriction over the spot.

"Treacherous" conditions

One of the stranded motorists, Christopher Hellwarth, 49, said he was headed to work from his Upper Gwynedd home to Burlington, N.J., when he hit the stretch of icy road.

Cars in front of him were bouncing into the center barrier, hitting other vehicles, sliding across three lanes of traffic and then hitting other cars, Hellwarth said.

"Two cars were within inches of hitting me," Hellwarth said, in an interview from his car while he sat on the turnpike near the Bustleton bypass. "I got into the left lane and slowed down and kept going because if I stopped, people were going to run into me."

When Hellwarth did come to a halt, he said, he watched in the rear view mirror as uncontrolled cars slid in the direction of his Honda Pilot. A tractor trailer ended up about three feet from his side door.

"I was just holding on because stuff behind me was going on all over the place," said Hellwarth, who came through the incident unscathed. "I should have played the lottery today. I missed them. They missed me."

Robert Malkin, of Souderton, drove onto the Northeast Extension at Lansdale around 6:20 a.m. headed to Croyden and encountered "treacherous" conditions when he turned onto the eastbound turnpike.

"They shouldn't have even allowed anyone up on the turnpike. That is how bad it was," said Malkin.

He described the center lane as a sheet of ice, the left lane as just as bad and the right lane only slightly better.

Carl DeFebo Jr, a spokesman for the turnpike commission, said the road had been plowed and salted over the last 48 hours. He said the speed limit restriction of 45 m.p.h. had been lifted around 6 a.m. because the snow had stopped.

However, he said, "Whenever we lift these [restrictions] we do so with the caution to motorists that there are still going to be slick areas."

Rescue crews faced a difficult task in responding due to the numbers of crashes and the crush of traffic stuck behind the scene. Some of the cars far back in the backup were eventually diverted off the turnpike by turning around, heading west in the eastbound lanes and exiting at Willow Grove.

Motorists traveling too fast - one report had many of the cars going at least 35 m.p.h. - and too close for the conditions were the cause of the accident, said Trooper Kevin Rathman.

"They can't react when someone in front of them has an accident," Rathman said.

Video of the crash site showed rescue workers trying to pry someone from a white sedan that had sustained serious damage. Another cluster of cars included a small red sedan that was overturned.

Fire trucks and at least 13 ambulance crews from Bucks and Montgomery responded to the scene, according to emergency dispatchers.

Helping each other

As the morning wore on, the unharmed but stranded motorists in the long backup began bonding.

One woman wandered to cars with doughnuts and coffee, and others broke out bananas, orange juice and other fruit. A man showed up on the side of the road with a case of water.

"Does anyone want water?" he hollered.

Others climbed an embankment to a bridge and returned with pizza and Subway sandwiches.

"It reminds me of an Eagles tailgate without the fun," said Nora Weigold, 47, of Willow Grove.

The Red Cross dispatched teams to the site, including trucks carring Wawa coffee.

Two men from Willow Grove, Rob Hessman, 35, and Josh Johnson, 26, noticed a beer truck stuck in the backup and joked with the driver that this would be a perfect time to sample his stock.

The driver laughed, too.

But he did not comply.

Things got dicey for Ashley Crandall, 31, of Malvern.

On her way to work at General Electric in Bensalem, Crandall was worried that her 11-month-old daughter, Annabelle, wouldn't make it to day care. And the girl was getting hungry.

So Crandall, six months pregnant, called her colleagues at work. The "GE Rescue Squad" arrived a bit later, and when Crandall realized she did not have boots, a man offered to carry Annabelle to the colleagues on the side of the road, who transported the girl to day care.

"I have to give them a raise," Crandall sad.

[IIOY]

I posted about this in the vent thread. This entire thing is so unspeakably awful. A friend of mine said her husband missed being in the accident by something like two minutes on his commute this morning. He got stuck in the accident traffic, however, and just got home a couple hours ago.

[IIOY]

And really, bless these Good Samaritans handing out food and beverages. My goodness.

[meshaliuknits]

Dude. That's a mess of cars.

[redheadbaker]

I just remembered that the road to my parents' development goes over the turnpike right there. I wonder if they heard the accidents.

[msmerymac]

My mom keeps texting to ask how we're doing. I told her about the pile up and her response was, "Holy shit."

[Deleted]

That's awful. Thank goodness nobody was killed.

[Velar Fricative]

I can't believe no one was killed! That looks really bad.

[redheadbaker]

They were saying that tractor trailer drivers intentionally jack-knifed their trucks, because they were less likely to cause fatal injuries that way.

[redheadbaker]

There was another story of a woman with her 16-month-old nephew in the car. They were both fine, but when the woman realized they'd be stuck for hours, she called relatives to come get the boy. The boy's grandfather parked on an overpass, and several people, including a television reporter broadcasting from the scene, all pitched in to get the baby up the steep embankment to the grandfather's car.

[curbsideprophet]

DH was telling me about this morning. Craziness.