A woman was critically injured yesterday when her car was "sandwiched" between two tractor-trailers on Interstate 695 near Catonsville, the first in a series of accidents that left police scrambling to keep traffic moving on the interstate highways near the city, authorities said.
One truck driver was charged with a traffic violation in the accident, which closed both sides of the Beltway for a time and left the woman's car so mangled that investigators could not be sure of the model.
"The only thing that was left was the passenger area," said Tfc. Tracy Hart, of the Maryland State Police Golden Ring barracks. He said the woman's jaw was broken when the rear of a tractor-trailer smashed through her windshield and hit her face.
The woman, identified as Melinda Jackson, 35, of the 1100 block of Linden Ave., Baltimore, was flown by state police helicopter to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. A spokeswoman for the trauma center said the woman was in critical but stable condition.
The trucker, identified as Jimmy Darrell Brown, 50, of Reidsville, N.C., was charged with failing to control his speed to avoid a collision, said Hart.
That accident, which occurred just before 11 a.m. near the Beltway interchange with Baltimore National Pike, forced police to close the inner loop of the Beltway for 1 1/2 hours. Police said traffic was backed up to Anne Arundel County, a distance of more than three miles.
The outer loop was briefly closed to allow the helicopter to land, causing traffic to slow back to Falls Road, police said.
Other accidents
Shorty after that accident, an overturned tractor-trailer caused state police to close lanes of the Beltway near Dundalk. A few minutes later, a 30-by-60-foot swimming pool fell from a truck into the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 near Elkridge. A crane was used to move it to the shoulder of the road.
Troopers scheduled to work the evening shift at the Golden Ring barracks were called in early because of the accidents, said Cpl. Mike Ridgell.
"It's just a crazy day," said Ridgell, who was working the desk at the barracks yesterday. "Everything just happened at the same time. You'd expect this if there was some kind of bad weather -- unless there's some kind of freak wind that I don't know about."
Police said that in the first accident, a van and a car were merging onto the inner loop of the Beltway from eastbound U.S. 40 when the van changed lanes and suddenly braked, causing a tractor-trailer to swerve to the right and sideswipe the car.
Jackson -- driving a Mercury, perhaps a Marquis model -- slowed and swerved to avoid the collision, but was hit from behind by another tractor-trailer and pushed into the other truck.
Air bag activated
The car "got sandwiched," said 1st Sgt. Laura Lu Herman. The woman was conscious and able to talk while rescuers freed her from the wreckage, in part because the car's air bag activated, Herman said.
No other drivers were injured, police said. Preliminary inspections of the tractor-trailers showed no equipment violations, said Hart, the state police investigator.
Police worked yesterday to reconstruct the accident as part of their investigation. They said anyone with information on the van, which drove away from the accident, should call the Golden Ring barracks at 410-686-3101. Police said the van is green, but they had no further description.
Pub Date: 3/09/99
