Articles Posted in Fatal Traffic Accidents

While passenger car drivers can certainly be seriously hurt or even killed as a result of a highway collision with a large commercial truck or bus, the drivers and occupants of those heavier motor vehicles can also be subject to severe or fatal injury. As Baltimore auto accident attorneys and Maryland personal injury lawyers, our job is to represent the victims of accidents who have experienced pain and suffering due to another individual’s negligent actions.

In cases where a traffic accident results in death, there may be sufficient evidence to support a wrongful death lawsuit against the other driver. Certainly, when a motorist causes an injury accident, there are instances where the victims may wish to recover some of all of the costs associated with the medical treatment and rehabilitation following such an accident.

Earlier last month, a Georgetown man crashed his vehicle head-on into an 18-wheel tractor-trailer rig along a stretch of Rte 9 on a Tuesday morning. According to news reports, 50-year-old Richard Baker was traveling west on Rte 9 when for some reason the man’s minivan crossed over the centerline, running head-on into a semi driven by a Baltimore trucker.

Tragedies still abound in our modern world and despite our desire to be in control of our destiny from one day to the next there are situations that arise — traffic crashes, for example — that seem beyond our ability to avoid certain fateful events. As Maryland auto accident lawyers and personal injury attorneys, we empathize with those whose lives are interrupted, sometimes violently as a result of another person’s negligence or thoughtless actions.

Highway collisions and rural road mishaps between automobiles or commercial vehicles can turn a normal day into a milestone of pain and suffering. Fatal car, truck and motorcycle wrecks do not discriminate between young or old, rich or poor. These events are random, yet not unusual. But one common thread is the havoc these accidents can wreck on an individual’s life and that of his or her family.

Not long ago, a 52-year-old father and his six-year-old boy were killed in a crash along a darkened stretch of Rte 50 in Bowie, MD, when their 2002 Hyundai smashed into an abandoned vehicle apparently sitting in the roadway. According to news reports, Joseph Hein and his young son, Mikey, were headed eastbound on a Friday evening around 9:30pm when the accident occurred. Based on police reports, as the Hyundai was approaching Rte 301, it ran into a 2004 Cadillac SRX that had no headlamps or taillamps operating.

Driver error appears to be the cause of a fatal traffic accident in Waldorf, MD, when a local woman turned left in front of another passenger car on a stretch of Rte 5. According to Maryland State Police, 80-year-old Mary Gertrude Wade Chandler was reportedly attempting to turn her Chevy Cavalier from the southbound side of Rte 5 onto Gallant Green Rd just after 4pm in the afternoon.

In the process, Chandler apparently failed to yield right-of-way to an oncoming northbound Olds Aurora carrying four individuals. Chandler was critically injured as a result of the car crash and was taken to Prince George’s Hospital Center where she later died of her injuries.

The other people in the Oldsmobile received injuries that were not life-threatening. The driver, 37-year-old Jennifer Rae Snyder of St. Mary’s County, MD, and her three passengers were likely treated by emergency responders at the scene before they were taken by ambulance to Civista Medical Center. All three were minors were riding in the rear seat of the Olds at the time of the wreck. They included two boys — 10- and 14-years-old — and a 13-year-old girl, all riding in the back seat, according to police reports.

According to news reports, Anne Arundel prosecutors’ arguement that the death of a 73-year-old Howard Wright of Gambrills, MD, was likely the result of aggressive driving was apparenlty not sufficiently persuassive. As a result, the court recently sentenced an Annapolis resident to just six months in jail for killing the grandfather of six when his Toyota crashed head-on into the older man’s classic car two years ago. The two-car crash, which happened along a curved portion of Defense Highway near Nob Hill Dr., was caused when the the Toyota driver crossed the centerline. Prosecutors claimed that the defendant, Savvas Andres Pantelides, was going 80mph in a 45mph zone when the vehicles collided.

Pantelides’ defense attorney said his client was going no faster than 55 mph in the 45 mph zone when his vehicle struck Wright’s 1936 Ford 5-window coupe on June 25, 2009. According to news reports, the now-20-year-old Pantelides entered an Alford guilty plea to one count of auto manslaughter. For those unfamiliar with the term, an Alford plea allows a defendant to maintain his innocence while at the same time admitting to the court that the prosecution has sufficient evidence to convict him or her (the Alford plea carries the same consequences as that of pleading guilty).

In an earlier report, during the entering of the defendant’s plea, court records showed that the judge in the case would likely sentence Pantelides to six months for his part in the fatal car wreck. While this garnered disbelief from the victim’s family members, others believed it to be a fair sentence. Maintaining that the crash was an accident, Pantelides’ father reportedly said that his son was sorry and that he never meant to hurt anyone.

According to news reports, Pantelides was allegedly traveling eastbound on Defense Highway just before 8pm when his 2003 Toyota Corolla collided head-on with Wright’s westbound Ford coupe. As a result of the wreck, Wright died at the scene and Pantelides was flown to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center with serious injuries. The younger driver was reportedly in a coma for five days following the crash and spent another 55 days in the hospital; he has had to undergo nearly a dozen reconstructive surgeries on his legs and abdomen over the past year and a half.

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