Seven bikers in a vets club killed in collision
RANDOLPH, N.H. >> Ten motorcyclists with a club consisting of Marine veterans collided with a pickup truck on a rural highway, killing seven people, injuring others and leaving the biker community reeling.
A 2016 Dodge 2500 pickup truck collided with the riders Friday on U.S. 2, a two-lane highway in Randolph, New Hampshire State Police said. The cause of the deadly collision is not yet known, and the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
Authorities identified the pickup driver as Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, an employee of a Springfield, Massachusetts, company called Westfield Transport.
Zhukovskyy survived the accident and has not been charged, authorities said, but they didn’t release details on his condition or his whereabouts.
Someone who answered the phone at a listing for Westfield Transport on Saturday and declined to give a name said the company is cooperating with the investigation.
The pickup truck, which appeared from photos to be carrying a flatbed trailer, was on fire when emergency crews arrived. Witnesses described a “devastating” scene as bystanders tried to help riders lying in the road.
Along with the seven dead, state police said three additional people were taken to hospitals. Their conditions were unknown, and it wasn’t clear whether the dead were all bikers. Police did not provide names.
The crash sent shockwaves through New England’s community of motorcycle enthusiasts and military veterans, which sometimes overlap. The crash involved members of Marine JarHeads MC, a motorcycle club in New England that includes Marines and their spouses.
“When something like this happens, we all feel it,” said Cat Wilson, who organizes a motorcycle charity event in Massachusetts and is a friend of some of the crash victims. “There is no tighter community than our biker community.”
A photo posted by WMUR-TV showed motorcycles and wreckage scattered across the highway and a truck on the shoulder in flames. The road reopened Saturday, and skid marks were still visible on the road, which has mountains and fields as a backdrop. A patch of burned grass remained.
Bill Brown, a 73-year-old military veteran and motorcyclist, arrived at the scene near a gentle curve in the road to plant flags, calling the victims “brothers in arms” and vowing to keep riding.
“It’s tragic,” State Police Capt. Chris Vetter told reporters during a news conference late Friday. “It’s tragic for those involved, tragic for the families, so we’re doing our job, we’re doing our work and our thoughts are with the people who were adversely affected by this.”
The NTSB has sent a team to the site. Authorities had planned another news conference Saturday afternoon.
The NTSB investigates every civil aviation accident in the country, but only up to 20 per year involving other modes of transportation, spokesman Peter Knudson said. The agency investigates, he said, when “there are safety gains to be had from our investigation.”
Randolph is about a two-hour drive north of Concord, the capital, and a three-hour drive from Boston.
The crash created a chaotic scene in the town of about 300 people.
“There was debris everywhere,” said Miranda Thompson, 21, of Manchester, who was several cars back and recalled seeing a truck in flames on the side of the highway and six motorcycles.
“People were in the grass. There were people putting tourniquets on people.”