Maryland Car Accident Attorney Blog
Car, truck and motorcycle crashes can be horrendous events depending on the circumstances. For many people, a minor traffic accident can shake one up, cause some cuts and bruises, and leave the family vehicle in less than good-running condition; on the other hand, a bad highway collision involving a more than one car or even a commercial truck can result in serious injury and sometimes death.
As Maryland personal injury attorneys, I and my staff recognize the extreme physical and emotional damage that likely can occur following a terrible automobile or trucking wreck. In addition to potentially broken arms, legs and other bones, an occupant of a vehicle involved in a high-speed crash can receive head, neck and spinal injuries. In the worst cases, fatalities are not unheard of.
Because most cars and trucks are powered by gasoline and diesel engines, the danger of a fire is quite common, especially if one of the vehicles’ fuel tanks is ruptured during the crash. Although automobile manufacturers attempt to design and build their cars and trucks to withstand certain crash forces, the fact that nearly every car or truck on the road is riding around with the explosive potentail of more than a few sticks of dynamite in our fuel tanks can be quite eye-opening to some.
While car fires do occur from time to time, those that happen during a roadway collision can be even more deadly as the driver and passengers may be too injured to escape the vehicle on their own. If the occupants find themselves trapped in the vehicle during a fire, there is little time in which to act before a tragedy will occur.
Not long ago a multi-vehicle car crash in Glenarden killed two young boys and injured another four people. According to news reports, the crash occurred late on a Friday evening along a stretch of U.S. Rte50 just east of Martin Luther King Highway in Prince George’s County.
Based on reports from the Maryland State Police, the accident happened around 9:30pm as a mother and her two sons, aged 11 and two years old, where riding in their car along in the eastbound lanes of Rte 50. According to news articles, Gloria Vindel’s vehicle rear-ended another car in what apparently was a minor traffic incident. As the woman and the other driver were standing outside their damaged vehicles and exchanging information, a third vehicle driven by a Bowie, MD, resident rammed the back end of Vindel’s car, in which the two children were still occupying the back seat.
The force of that second impact apparently caused the gas tank in the woman’s vehicle to rupture and simultaneously ignite. At the same time the car was shoved into a nearby guardrail. The resulting fire quickly engulfed the boys’ vehicle, trapping them in the burning wreck. Sadly, those two youngsters were pronounced dead a the scene before the two young brothers could be removed from the rear seat.
Both Anthony Vindel and his younger brother, Delonte McKie, Jr., were pronounced dead at the scene. At the time of the news report, crash investigators from the MSP’s College Park Barracks was ongoing with the cooperation of the Maryland State Police CRASH Team, however no charges had been filed at the time of the article.
Fiery Car Crash in Glenarden Kills Two Young Brothers, MyFoxDC.com, November 11, 2011