Published: Sunday, April 8, 2007
Police say whiteout caused chain pileup
A Mercer police officer was slightly injured while directing the detoured traffic.
WEST MIDDLESEX, Pa. — The 28-vehicle pileup Friday on snowy Interstate 80 was caused by whiteout conditions, said state police.
Although five people were hurt, none of their injuries was serious, said Cpl. Daniel Solomon of the Pennsylvania State Police in Mercer County.
State police did not have available the names or addresses of the injured. Troopers are still investigating the crash.
A Mercer borough police officer was also slightly injured. Officer Rick Salatine was directing traffic detoured through the borough and was grazed by a car.
"I'm just sore," Salatine said Saturday. "I got clipped and taken off my feet."
He was treated at Grove City Hospital.
Salatine had just started directing traffic at Market and Erie streets a little after 8 p.m. when he was hit by the left front fender and side mirror of a car and knocked down. He said it was getting dark, and the driver, an elderly man, couldn't see well.
What happened
Drivers were detoured off the I-80 Mercer exit, up state Route 19 into Mercer, then to Route 62 to Hermitage and to Route 18 before getting back onto the interstate.
The accident happened shortly before 7 p.m. in the westbound lanes of the highway at the 12.5-mile marker, when a sudden snow squall limited visibility, Solomon said. The wreck involved mainly tractor trailers, he said.
Police were still trying to determine the sequence of the accident.
"Did cars stop and get hit, or was it continual? We don't know," he said.
The highway was closed until 11 p.m. as the Mercer County Emergency Management Agency, the Mercer East End Volunteer Fire Department, numerous wrecker services and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation worked in the wreckage, Solomon said.
He said the U.S. Postal Service had to be called because one of the vehicles involved was a mail truck. "They came out to secure the mail."
He said PennDOT salted the road because ice began to form after the accident. He said workers also set up barriers and direction signs.
Other accidents
That stretch of the highway has been the site of other pileups, including one in March that killed a Youngstown man, and an 80-car pileup in December 2004.
Whiteouts were reported as factors in those crashes as well.
There's nothing particularly hazardous about the site of Friday's crash, Solomon said.
"A little further west, [the road] dips and there's a curve, but [the wreck] wasn't in that location," he said.
He said bad weather is a hazard on I-80 simply because of the high volume of traffic.
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