Highway patrol: forty vehicles involved in massive I-74 pileup
More than forty vehicles were involved in a pileup on I-74 near the Ohio/Indiana border, a mess described as "unspoiled chaos."
A snow squall Tuesday caused a massive pile-up on I-74 in Dearborn Co., Ind., causing the highway to close in both directions for hours. Chopper nine filmed this eagle-eye footage of the extent of the harm.
Driver stood on highway and flapped off oncoming traffic, then drove away.
Emergency crews worked to rescue motorists trapped and/or injured after a massive, 40-car pileup on I-74 Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2015. (Scott Wegener/WCPO)
DEARBORN COUNTY, Ind. — "The trucks just kept coming."
That's how one motorist described the more than 40-vehicle pileup on WB I-74 near the Indiana-Ohio state line Tuesday morning.
According to the Indiana State Highway Patrol, the crash began with one jackknifed semi-truck and quickly escalated due to a snow squall around eleven a.m. The massive wreckage resembled a junkyard and shut down I-74 in both directions until nightfall, but the ISP said there were no life-threatening injuries. Six people were transported to hospitals.
The pileup was a combination of two crashes, patrolmen said, beginning with twenty eight vehicles and ending with a total of 40.
Eastbound lanes reopened just after five p.m., but westbound drivers had to wait until almost eight p.m. for tow trucks to clear the last wrecked vehicle.
Sean Selman was driving westbound from Cincinnati when he said he encountered the crash unfolding before his eyes.
"I came up onto a pile of semis in the middle of the road," Selman told WCPO. "I veered off in the median to miss them, hit one of the trucks. As soon as I hopped out, semis just kept coming and ramming into the pile. There were cars trapped under where they were hitting.
"The trucks just kept coming, they kept wedging, so I ran out on the road to attempt and slow everyone down," he said.
Selman described how he and a few other motorists acted quickly to direct emergency vehicles into the pileup and even attempted to talk to some of the other drivers who were pinned in their vehicles.
"There was a trucker that was pinned pretty bad, but we were talking to him," he said. "I crawled under the next trailer, and there was a car underneath that — embarked talking to him."
David Pickrell was also driving along the interstate, along what he described as the front of the pileup. He said he was struck at how well motorists kept their composure.
"Soon as everything slowed down enough, we got out, began rendering very first aid where we could," Pickrell said. "Everybody reached in their cars, helped everybody else out. Nobody panicked, nobody freaked out."
According to nine Very first Warning Meteorologist Jennifer Ketchmark, a snow squall is like the leading edge of a thunderstorm. It's quick, it's intense and the winds are high. The difference is, it's snow. Instead of having raw roads, you now have snow covered roads, horrendous visibility and crashes. Tuesday's snow squalls were moving at fifty mph.
Selman described it as a "wall of snow."
"The roads were covered, people were going rapid, I can't believe it," he said. "At least where we were at, nobody was killed."
Pickrell had a similar memory of the storm: "There was no visibility, and then it hit like lightning."
Indiana State Police Sgt. Stephen Wheeles said such a massive pileup isn't common, but isn't unheard of during weather like Tuesday morning's.
"When these chain-reaction type crashes happen, that's often what causes them," Wheeles said. "People lose visibility and then they commence slowing down."
The crash commenced on WB I-74 near the Indiana state line and weigh scales, Dearborn County deputies said.
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