Six people killed in Bay State weekend crashes

A big-hearted grandmother who devoted her life to the less fortunate was among six people killed on Bay State roads this weekend.

Mildred C. Collins, 58, of Worcester was on her way to a fair Saturday morning with two colleagues to raise money for her long-standing charity New England Outreach when the Cadillac Escalade she was a passenger in rolled over on the Massachusetts Turnpike westbound in Ludlow, throwing her and a second, 66-year-old female passenger onto the highway.

The second woman and the SUV’s driver, a 44-yearold man, both also from Worcester, suffered serious injuries, state police said.

A grief-stricken Gregg Collins said his mother adored treating his 7-year-old daughter and his sister’s two young daughters to ice cream and trips to the park after school.

“She cared for and helped a lot of people and she never really asked for anything in return,” he said. “She just always had a big heart for everybody.”

In addition to looking after his sick father, Gregg Collins, 33, said his mother, a Brookfield native, worked at his recently opened restaurant, Teresa’s Pizza in Millbury, greeting customers and answering the phone.

“She pretty much built it,” the son said through tears. “She was with me every step of the way.”

In Millis, a driver was killed in a collision with a police cruiser. Millis police said in a press release that the crash occurred on Main Street and involved an on-duty officer in a marked cruiser. The officer suffered “significant injuries to his left arm,” police said, and the driver of the other car was taken to Norwood Hospital but did not survive his injuries.

In East Boston, two people were killed early yesterday morning in a single-car crash on the 450-foot Chelsea Street vertical-lift bridge at 3:30 a.m.

Three hours later in Tyngsboro, state police said a 19-year-old man was found dead at the scene of a singlecar crash on Route 3 north involving a 2003 Volkswagen Passat that investigators said came to rest at a tree line after veering off the road.

Also, at 9:20 a.m. in Quincy, state police said a 26-year-old Rockland man was killed when the Harley Davidson Street Glide motorcycle he was driving on Interstate 93 south in Quincy collided with a Honda Pilot driven by a 54-year-old man from Milton.

No charges were pending last night in either the Ludlow or Quincy crashes.