Handling the Worst Crash Ever in Virginia

Public Roads, May, 2001 by Melissa A. Winn

On Feb. 20, 2000, it reached 65 degrees (19 degrees Celsius) in Stafford, Va.; 53 degrees (12 C) on Feb. 21. However, on Feb. 22, the highest temperature was only 27 degrees (-3 C), and a sudden snowstorm dropped more than an inch (3 centimeters) of snow in a matter of minutes, creating whiteout conditions that took everyone by surprise. The scene was set for what would become Virginia's worst crash ever -- a 117-vehicle pileup that left one person dead and 31 others injured.

The 10:50 a.m. pileup occurred on the busy north-south Interstate 95, halting traffic in the southbound lanes for hours and jamming traffic throughout Northern Virginia. What happened next was a massive, cooperative effort by fire and rescue units, the state police, and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). The impressive response of public safety and transportation personnel facilitated clearing the crash scene and reopening the highway in only 12 hours.

Fire and Rescue

The call was dispatched at 10:51 a.m., and Stafford's Volunteer Fire and Rescue squads arrived on the scene of the 1-95 crash at 10:55 a.m.

"Our first order of business," said Lt. Charlie Robertson of Stafford's Volunteer Fire Squad, "was a report that a woman was trapped in a burning car."

Robertson reported that the squad was able to put the fire out and was relieved to find that the woman was not in the car. She had escaped. After the fire was out, the magnitude of the scene began to unfold.

"We were not initially aware of the extent of the scene," Robertson said, "After we got the fire out, we had to set up a triage for all vehicles. We suddenly found ourselves in the extrication of about 20 vehicles."

Shortly after putting out the fire, a second call reported that another woman was trapped in her vehicle. Fire and rescue squads freed her from the car, but the woman died of a heart attack on the way to the hospital.

She was the one fatality in the 117-vehicle pileup. She was on her way to pick up her teen-age son from an area high school where classes had been canceled due to inclement weather.

Fire and rescue personnel continued to interview the people in each vehicle to determine the status of all persons involved in the crash. In all, they determined that 14 people with injuries were in need of transport to area hospitals. Only three injuries were determined to be of a serious nature, one of which was the woman who eventually died. The three patients in critical condition were transported in a short time on the first ambulance to the hospital.

In all, six fire trucks with water hoses, eight to 10 ambulances, a couple of heavy squads (fire trucks equipped with rescue equipment and first-aid equipment, but without a water hose), and four or five utility vehicles were dispatched to the scene. The number of vehicles involved in the crash and the location of those vehicles made it nearly impossible for most rescue vehicles to get to the head of the crash scene where a fire and rescue command post had been established. The scene was so hard to maneuver around that in order to get a hose close enough to put Out the fire at the scene, the firemen had to take the charged line through the windows of one car, around another car, and underneath several tractor trailers.

"We had to use 500 feet (150 meters) of hose to get to the fire to get it out," Robertson said. "We had to weave it through and around the vehicles. The working room was limited."

Fire and rescue personnel also initiated the setup of a shelter for people involved in the crash who were not injured but were not able to leave the scene because police had yet to get their statements. The shelter was set up at a nearby elementary school, which was available because classes had been canceled due to weather. Buses were recruited to take people to the shelter, and the Red Cross was contacted to assist people at the shelter. The auxiliary fire department also provided food and refreshments.

State Police

In any traffic incident, state police are typically called on to investigate why and how the crash occurred and to direct traffic at the scene. On Feb. 22, they faced the arduous task of trying to determine who, if anybody, was at fault for the 117-vehicle pileup. At 1:10 p.m., a team of 20 troopers, including special agents from the Bureau of Criminal Investigations, arrived on the scene, supervised by 1st Sgt. Jeff Fox.

Trooper Dan Redifer of the state police was in charge of reconstructing the accident scene. He broke the scene down into quadrants. He then assigned troopers to each quadrant to get witness statements, trace the scene, and develop a diagram that would illustrate the location of every vehicle in the crash. The on-scene investigation took hours, and state police worked on it throughout the night until 6 a.m. the next morning. For weeks following the crash, state police continued the investigation.

"It was an extremely cumbersome task to try to determine who was at fault," said Lucy Caldwell of the Public Affairs Office for the state police. "Numerous motorists lost control. We won't probably ever be able to say."