Fri Sep 03 2010
By Colin McEwen
Record-Courier staff writer
EDINBURG — A chain-reaction crash involving four trucks Friday morning closed S.R. 14 for two hours and sent five people to area hospitals — two of them with critical injuries.
Wet road conditions and poor visibility caused by rainfall are at least partly to blame, according to police.
The series of crashes started at 7 a.m., when a Ford Ranger pickup truck driven by George Beech, 39, of 6268 Giddings Road, Rootstown, was traveling southeast on S.R. 14 near Cable Line Road and lost control.
Beech swerved left of center and sideswiped a Ford E350 straight truck, driven by Adam Somers, 24, of Paris, who was headed northeast on S.R. 14.
Beech’s vehicle then continued in the opposite lane and collided head-on with a 2009 Chevrolet Silverado truck, driven by Franklin Lowden, 51, of Homeworth in Columbiana County.
According to a report from the Ravenna Post of the Ohio Highway Patrol, Beech’s vehicle was thrown off the northeast side of the roadway into a ditch.
Lowden’s vehicle spun clockwise in the northwest-bound lane and was struck by Michele Whaley, 42, of Alliance, who was headed northwest in a Ford F350 pickup.
Beech’s two passengers — his 14-year-old stepdaughter and his wife, Sheila Beech, 32 — are both listed in critical condition. They were both transported to Akron-area hospitals with unknown injuries.
George Beech, Lowden and Whaley were all transported to Robinson Memorial Hospital with unknown injuries.
Somers was treated at the scene and released.
While the crash lasted only a few moments, it took more than two hours to clear as crews worked on the twisted wreckage.
The impacts were severe enough to cause oil and gasoline from the trucks to spill out onto the road, further slowing the clean-up.
Motorists were rerouted to I-76 or surrounding roads until S.R. 14 was reopened around 9:15 a.m.
Trooper Philip Sheaffer said the weather was certainly a factor in the crash. He said that while he believes everyone involved was traveling the posted speed limit, motorists should consider slowing down in difficult weather conditions.
“Nothing is worth getting somewhere that fast,” he said.
No charges have been filed, but Sheaffer said the crash is still under investigation.
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