Pocono News Section

Black Ice Blamed for Multi-Vehicle Accident

Black Ice Blamed for Multi-Vehicle Accident - Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 11:30AM EST

Reported by: Mark Hiller
Wednesday, Dec 16, 2009 @ 11:30am EST
COVINGTON TOWNSHIP, LACKAWANNA COUNTY -
People in 3-vehicles are lucky to escape serious injury after an accident in Lackawanna County Wednesday morning.
2-cars and a van spun out and crashed along Interstate 380 southbound near Moscow.
Ambulance personnel on the scene said 3 people went to the hospital to get checked out for after they were shaken up..
To look at the crash scene, you would have thought much worse.
That's exactly what one man thought whose car was the first to spin out of control on the slick highway.
"I thought I was going to die and rollover," said Cory O'Connor of Avoca.
He considers himself one very lucky man despite having his car smashed-up.
He was heading to Gouldsboro shortly after 6 in the morning to meet friends.
Now, his is one of 3 vehicles that had to be towed from the highway.

"I didn't know what to think. I was just in shock from this," said O'Connor who left his home in Avoca just a short time earlier and was traveling along 380. He didn't have any problems until he approached mile marker 19 when all of a sudden his car began to spin out.

"Hit a little bit of black ice, went sideways for about a good 2-minutes, hit a wall and kept spinning. And then ended up here."
He knew he was in danger stranded in the middle of the road so he decided to abandon the car.
"And then I just got out and ran to the side and a tractor trailer clipped my bumper."

O'Connor called his friend, Ryan Grassi of Greentown, to come get him.
"When he called he was the only one who got in the wreck," said Grassi. "By the time we came 7-miles away, there were 3 more cars wrecked."

One of the vehicles is a van that has heavy front end damage.
And a car's driver's side got hung up on top of the guide rail before a tow truck put it on its wheels.
Bill Lane of Lane's Towing in Spring Brook Township, says he expected something like this to happen
"We see a lot of it. And that's just what we do. Unfortunately people get hurt and this time nobody got hurt," said Lane. "They were fortunate"

It's something O'Connor realizes could have ended very differently.
When asked if he has a guardian angel, he replied, "I guess so. She is watching over me"
O'Connor wasn't hurt.
A state trooper on the scene described the worst injury as an arm injury -- and that was the woman whose car ended up on the guide rail.
Interstate 380 was backed up for miles between Daleville and Gouldsboro.
The highway fully reopened after more than an hour.