Berks coroner releases ID on latest I-78 traffic death

He was a passenger in a box truck; driver has been arrested

The passenger killed in the latest fatal accident on Interstate 78 in northern Berks County was identified Saturday morning as John C. Huff, 72, of Edmore, Mich.

Huff was pronounced dead at the scene Friday at 7:18 a.m. by Berks Deputy Coroner Jason Kantner.

An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday morning at Reading Hospital, acting Coroner Jonn M. Hollenbach said.

Huff was the front seat passenger in a box truck driven Jamie Sanchez, 44, of Bridgeport, Conn., when the vehicle hit the rear of a disabled tractor-trailer parked along the westbound lanes of the highway near the ramp from southbound Route 61 in Tilden Township, state police said.

Sanchez was charged Friday in Huff’s death.

For the week, Huff was the sixth death associated with crashes on the interstate, and the 38th traffic death in Berks in 2021.

On Tuesday night there were two fatal crashes on I-78, accounting for five more deaths.

Sanchez was arraigned later Friday by District Judge Kimberly L. Bagenstonse at Reading Hospital and was denied bail, police said. Sanchez will be committed to Berks County Prison once he is released from the hospital, troopers said.

The box truck hit the parked rig shortly before 6 a.m. Friday on the onramp from Route 61 southbound to the westbound interstate near Hamburg and closed a 10-mile stretch of the interstate for five hours.

The tractor-trailer operator, Andrae C.R. Bland, 42, of Fresno, Calif., was uninjured.

State police are asking anyone who witnessed the crash to call the Hamburg station at 610-582-6885.