Motorist gets house arrest for Liberty Bridge collision
Head-on crash hurt parents, newborn
Maureen Ciampaglia vividly remembers every moment:
From sitting in the back seat, gazing at her 4-day-old son as he made his first car ride back to their Brookline home.
To listening to her husband, Brandon, telling Liam about all the sites he wanted to show him in Pittsburgh.
To the moment the white Dodge Journey crossed its lane on the Liberty Bridge and crashed headon into the family’s car. To Brandon moaning in pain. To seeing Liam’s eyes closed and his mouth bleeding.
To the sounds of metal and glass as Brandon was cut out of the car.
To believing she would never see her son again.
“We couldn’t wait to get him home and start our lives as a new family of three,” Ms. Ciampaglia said.
Instead, she returned to the hospital with internal bleeding, broken collar bones on the left and right, a fractured sternum, and ultimately a splenectomy. She had two additional surgeries and spent 12 days hospitalized.
Mr. Ciampaglia, who has no memory of the accident, broke every rib on the left side of his body and five on the right, and suffered a lumbar and ocular fracture.
Liam, now almost 2, had a brain bleed that led to seizures, a liver laceration, cracked ribs and internal bruising. He spent 20 days in the hospital.
On Wednesday, the man who was driving the car that struck theirs during what the prosecution called an incident of “distracted driving” was ordered to serve 20 months on house arrest, to be followed by 30 months probation.
Richard L. Hauschel II, 33, of Brownsville, pleaded guilty in November before Allegheny
County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey A. Manning to aggravated assault by vehicle, reckless endangerment, reckless driving and related charges.
Assistant District Attorney Alison Bragle said Hauschel was driving inbound on the bridge at 2:37 p.m. April 4, 2017, when his vehicle crossed over into an outbound lane, striking the family’s car.
The vehicle data recorder inside Hauschel’s car showed he was traveling 44 mph at the time and never braked before the crash.
Cell phone records show he had been sending and receiving text messages within four minutes of the first 911 call, Ms. Bragle said.
During a powerful victim impact statement, Ms. Ciampaglia said, “I have to spend time convincing myself that my son is alive, that my husband is with me, that my family is intact.”
They have moved away from Pittsburgh, because she was unable to drive in the city, she said.
Ms. Ciampaglia told Judge Manning that after she and her husband were released from the hospital, her parents moved in with them, to help care for Liam.
“I couldn’t hold him, I couldn’t change his diaper, I couldn’t nurse him,” she said. “My journey as a new parent was not beginning the way it should have, and I was angry. Those moments with my son were stolen from me.”
Liam still receives occupational and physical therapy and took his first steps at 20 months old. His mom said he struggles to use his left hand and could some day have issues with impulse control.
“I do not have the comfort of knowing which of these traits is a result of the accident and which are just Liam,” she said. “I do know that my son is funny and silly and hard-working and loving and stubborn and beautiful.
“He is still my perfect little boy. But he almost wasn’t. The mistakes of a man we’d never met nearly took the life of my son. He nearly destroyed my family.”
In making his argument to the judge, defense attorney James Sheets said his client has no prior record, is employed full time at a body shop and has three children.
“It is hard, based on what this family has been through, to ask for a mitigated range sentence,” Mr. Sheets said. “There was absolutely no malice on the part of the defendant. This was a horrific automobile
“The mistakes of a man we’d never met nearly took the life of my son. He nearly destroyed my family.” — Maureen Ciampaglia
accident, that will no doubt affect this family forever.
“But it was, in fact, an accident.”
When it was his turn to speak, Hauschel, who was crying, turned to look at the Ciampaglia family and said, “I’m sorry what happened. I’m sorry, guys.”
After the hearing, Ms. Ciampaglia said she was satisfied by Hauschel’s sentence, and she hopes what happened to her family can serve as a lesson.
“I would just implore people to put down your phones while driving, because my son has had to pay the price for that.”