Indiana Toll Road Crash Update

Elkhart County – The remaining two individuals killed in yesterday’s crash on the Toll Road that claimed eight lives have been identified. Killed in the crash was Lester E. Yoder, 36, of Topeka. Also killed was Vernon H. Miller, 38, of Wolcottville.. Both men were passengers in the Ford F250 in which five died and one was seriously injured.

Deceased: Lester E. Yoder (36) Topeka, Indiana

Passenger in 2000 Ford F250.

Vernon H. Miller (38) Wolcottville, Indiana

Passenger in 2000 Ford F250.





BRISTOL, Ind. (AP) — The driver of a semitrailer plowed into morning traffic slowed for a bridge construction project Thursday along the Indiana Toll Road, killing at least eight people and injuring two others, police said.

The eight confirmed victims included five who died in a single vehicle, said 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten of the Indiana State Police. Four of the victims were members of northern Indiana’s large Amish population.

The crash brought to at least 20 the number of people killed in four multiple-fatality collisions involving semitrailers over just more than 20 months on a short stretch of the east-west tollway, which also is Interstates 80 and 90.

The 6:45 a.m. crash about 25 miles east of South Bend occurred when the driver of a semitrailer rear-ended another vehicle and started a chain reaction crash involving two other semitrailers and four passenger vehicles that had slowed while approaching a construction area, said state police Sgt. Trent Smith.

He said it was unclear why the semi driver didn’t brake as he approached the area.

“At this point we don’t know the reason. He did not slow down,” Smith said, adding, “It’s one of the worst accidents that we’ve had up here.”

Smith said five of the victims died in a van but that the van’s driver survived the crash.

He said two other people killed had been riding in a sport-utility vehicle, and the eighth victim was the driver of a pickup truck.

Nearby resident Kim VanFleeren visited the crash scene shortly after the accident and said she saw several covered bodies on the road and a demolished car under one of the semitrailers.

“There was a vehicle almost three-fourths of the way under the back his trailer. I couldn’t tell if it was a van or a car or what it was,” she told WSBT radio in South Bend.

Smith said the accident occurred in the tollway’s westbound lanes about 1 1/2 miles before the start of a construction site where highway workers are rebuilding a bridge. Traffic had come to a standstill in the right lane and was moving slowly into the left lane.

He said the warning signs were posted along the highway up to three miles from where the construction site began.

“There are thousands of people that travel these roads everyday. All it takes is one person not paying attention for a split second to cause these accidents,” Smith said.

Hours after the crash, hazardous materials workers were working to clean up diesel fuel that stood in puddles or was streaming along the roadway from the damaged semitrailers.

Investigators were collecting evidence and working to identify the victims.

Bristol Fire Chief William Dempster said four of the victims were Amish residents of nearby LaGrange County.

While Amish typically do not drive motor vehicles because they don’t want to depend on technology, it is common for Amish workers to hire drivers to take them to work, said Joseph Yoder, director of the Menno-Hof, a nonprofit information center in nearby Shipshewana that teaches visitors about the Amish and Mennonite.

Many public telephones in Amish areas have lists of drivers and many Amish use the drivers to get to jobs in factories or construction work, Yoder said. Steven Nolt, a Goshen College history professor who has written several books about the Amish, said Amish frequently travel together in work crews and hire a driver.

About 14,000 Amish live in western LaGrange and eastern Elkhart counties, Nolt said.

Yoder said the deaths would hit the Amish hard because they are so community-oriented.

“But they will accept it as being God’s will,” he said. “You don’t question God.”

The crash left westbound lanes closed about 40 miles west of the Ohio state line.

1st Sgt. David Boehler of the state police said it was raining at the time of the crash but investigators did not believe weather played a role in the collision.

At the crash scene, a crew hauled away a vehicle that was so heavily damaged it was unrecognizable. One of the semitrailers appeared to have a crushed front end and fire damage. A pickup truck that was facing the wrong way had its back end torn off in the crash.

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