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Four Weeks on Interstate 65
by Angela C. Townsend
From February 6 to March 2, 2002 a series of motor vehicle accidents occurred between mile markers 84 and 101 on Interstate 65 in Hardin County, Kentucky. All four incidents involved entrapment and three of them claimed a total of five lives.
On February 6, 2002, a semi truck owned by WW Trucking veered off I-65 southbound into the center median near mile marker 99, plowing through a twelve-inch thick concrete barrier wall and falling into the creek below. Reports indicate the driver suffered a heart attack and died before the semi left the highway. Elizabethtown Fire Department’s Rescue One and Central Hardin Volunteer Fire Department responded. Extrication of the driver took approximately one hour. Hardin County Emergency Management personnel were also on scene to contain fuel spilled into the creek.
On February 15, 2002, a semi truck owned by the Kroger grocery chain experienced an unknown mechanical problem or a driver error that caused the vehicle to cross the median out of the northbound lane near mile marker 95 and strike a car that was traveling south on I-65. The semi continued to travel north in the southbound lane for several hundred feet before coming to rest in the median. Both vehicles caught fire and the cab of the semi was consumed. The driver was treated at Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown and released. There were four passengers in the car. Three were killed by the impact of the collision; the fourth was extricated and sent to University Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky. To date investigation into the cause of this incident remains inconclusive.
On February 27, 2002, a sudden brief snowstorm and temperatures in the teens led to the freezing of an overpass on I-65 southbound near mile marker 101. Eighteen vehicles became involved in a pile-up and victims had to be extricated from two of them. There were no fatalities. The most serious concern was the driver of a Toyota RAV-4 that was sandwiched between three semi trucks. It took two and one half hours for firefighters from Elizabethtown Fire Department and Central Hardin Volunteer Fire Department to extricate the victim, who was then flown to University Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky by a STATCARE helicopter. He was released from the hospital the following day with only minor injuries.
On March 2, 2002, while traveling southbound on I-65 near Sonora, Kentucky, the driver of a full-sized Ford pickup apparently fell asleep. The vehicle veered off the road and crashed into the rear of a semi that was parked on the shoulder of the Interstate near mile marker 84. The passenger was killed on impact. The driver of the pickup was alive, but pinned in the cab of the truck. Elizabethtown Fire Department’s Rescue One and Sonora Fire Department personnel rescued the driver, who was then flown to University Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky where she received treatment for several weeks before returning to her home in Michigan.
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