1 killed as crashes reported across county

CALN » Numerous vehicle accidents were reported due to icy road conditions and one person died.

Soon after the Eagles clinched the Super Bowl as first-time world champs, the Thorndale Fire Company firefighters were busy responding to motor vehicle accidents with the first dispatch at 10:11 p.m. Sunday. The volunteer fire department had all equipment restored back at the station by 4:30 a.m. Monday.

Thorndale firefighters responded to at least seven vehicle

accidents, including one fatal crash, according to Thorndale Fire Chief John Cordisco. Firefighters, fire police, along with Brandywine Hospital Medic 93 and Washington Hose Company Ambulance of Coatesville responded to a singlevehicle accident on Route 340 (Bondsville Road) and Kingsway Drive at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. The driver was the sole occupant of the vehicle and they were pronounced dead at the scene. The roads were shut down until about 4 a.m.

The other vehicle accidents Thorndale responded

to were all on the Route 30 Bypass. Cordisco said firefighters responded to one entrapment call where the driver lost control of their vehicle because of the ice. When the vehicle was off on the shoulder of the road, it was then T-boned by another vehicle causing the first driver to become entrapped. Firefighters extricated that driver and she was transported to a Paoli Hospital. No other occupants were transported to a hospital in their local, Cordisco added.

Cordisco noted that all of the accidents seemed to be a result of the icy conditions. One accident occurred in the eastbound lanes and the others occurred in the westbound lanes. He said that

traffic traveling in the opposite direction of where the first responders were operating had not slowed down on the bypass, despite the road conditions.

“It turned into a sheet of ice pretty quickly on the bypass, on both sides,” Cordisco said.

From 10 p.m. Sunday to 8 a.m. Monday there were 80 accidents countywide, 10 of which were reported on the 30 Bypass, according to Mike Groover, assistant director for quality of the Chester County Department of Emergency Services.

Westwood Assistant Chief Adam Grossman arrived first on-scene of single-vehicle crash on the Route 30 Bypass at about 10 p.m. on Sunday and found that bystanders helping the occupants. Grossman said that a vehicle

hit a guardrail and slid on the ice for about a quarter-mile before it came to a rest. He said a baby had been ejected from the vehicle and bystanders were holding the baby. The baby was transported to Paoli for treatment, according to Grossman. No other injuries were reported.

Westwood firefighters responded to three other accidents in the immediate area on the bypass at the same time. No injuries were reported during those incidents.

Grossman said that with the cold temperatures after it rained that the roads became icy and it made driving, and braking, difficult.

“Everything suddenly ices,” Grossman said. “It’s like you’re ice skating, it’s terrible.”

Firefighters were dispatched for the first crash shortly before the Super Bowl game ended.

“That’s why there was such a huge volume of cars,” Grossman said. “The Super Bowl ended and people were trying to get home.”

Visit Daily Local News staff writer Ginger Rae Dunbar’s blog about journalism and volunteering as a firefighter at FirefighterGinger.blogspot.com.