Confirmed Fatalities in I-70 Crash

Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page.

State Police Header Image 3

INDIANA STATE POLICE
PENDLETON DISTRICT
9022 S. State Road 67 
Pendleton, IN 46064

www.in.gov/isp

FOR RELEASE: Upon Receipt

 

CONTACT:
Sgt. John Bowling
Public Information Officer
765-778-2121

 

DATE - July 9, 2020

 

Confirmed Fatalities in I-70 Crash

 

Wayne County - Around 5:07 p.m. this evening Wayne County Deputies responded to a three vehicle crash on I-70 just west of the Cambridge City exit, just west of a construction zone. Deputies arrived to find a Chevrolet car and semi pulling a box trailer off the left side of east bound I-70 fully engulfed in flames.

Fire Departments from Cambridge City, Greens Fork and Hagerstown responded to extinguish the flames. In a joint effort the Wayne County Sheriff's Department requested Indiana State Police Crash Scene Reconstruction Investigators to work the traffic investigation and they would take the criminal investigation.

The preliminary investigation by Trooper Ray Otter and Crash Reconstruction Investigators Sgt. Danielle Elwood-Henderson, Master Trooper Coley McCutcheon, and Trooper Mark Hanna, indicates that a 2004 Kenworth Tractor pulling a loaded box trailer was east bound in the right (driving lane) when the truck came upon traffic that was slowed to merge left into the left passing lane for a construction zone.

The Kenworth failed to slow down and hit a Chevrolet passenger car in the rear that was slowed in the right lane, pushing it forward into the left rear corner of  a semi trailer which was also in the right lane directly in front of the passenger car.  The first semi continued pushing the passenger car into the left lane and eventually off onto the berm of the left lane where the two vehicles burst into flames. A passerby was able to pull the driver of the passenger car out of the vehicle, but none of his passengers. The driver of the passenger car was transported to a hospital in Indianapolis with severe injuries.

There were multiple fatalities in the passenger car, and names are being withheld pending notifications.  The driver of the Kenworth, Cory Withrow, age 33 of Camden, Ohio, escaped his burning semi with non- life threatening injuries. He was transported to Reid Health Hospital in Richmond.  The driver of the second semi, Thomas Flaherty, age 57, of Springfield, Ohio, was uninjured.

The preliminary criminal investigation by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department indicates that drugs were a contributing factor in causing the crash and that criminal charges are forthcoming. This is all the information available for release at this time pending notifications. I-70 east bound remains closed at the time of this release, and it's unknown when it will reopen.

 

All Suspects Are Presumed Innocent Until Proven Guilty in a Court of Law



-30-

I-70 CrashState Police section divider