Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Guardswoman dies in Delaware crash after her car was smashed into smithereens by a semi-truck while she was amaking a left turn

 (Photo: DAMIAN GILETTO/THE NEWS JOURNAL)

Guardswoman dies in Del. 273 crash

A woman initially reported by police to have been killed in a crash just before 7 a.m. Tuesday near New Castle was revived on the way to the hospital but died hours later, state police said.

After initially announcing her death, Master Cpl. Jeffrey R. Hale said, police “learned that through advanced lifesaving efforts provided to the victim by New Castle County paramedics, she has been admitted to the Christiana Hospital in extremely critical condition.”

Joann M. Hess, 29, of Smyrna, who suffered multiple blunt force trauma in the crash, succumbed to her injuries at 10:19 a.m., Hale said.

The crash was the first fatality this year at Christiana Road (Del. 273) and Airport Road, an intersection that area residents and business people call a dangerous one with too frequent crashes.

The Delaware State Police Collision Reconstruction Unit continues to investigate the crash, Hale said, but charges are not expected to be filed.

Reported at 6:58 a.m., the crash occurred as Hess was turning left from eastbound Christiana Road (Del. 273) onto northbound Airport Road, Hale said.

Hess, a staff sergeant in the Delaware Air National Guard, was on her was to work at the New Castle Air National Guard Base when the incident occurred, said Army Lt. Col. Len Gratteri, a Guard spokesman.

She drove into the path of a westbound truck driven by John C. Rowell 3rd, 26, of Wilmington, who was not injured in the crash, Hale said.

Liz Brown of Bear saw the woman’s car was stopped on eastbound Christiana Road, waiting to turn left onto Airport Road, as she approached the intersection on her way to work at Amazon, along Del. 273 closer to New Castle.

As Brown cleared the intersection, she said, “I heard the truck slam on its brakes and I heard the impact.

“Then I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the truck pushing the car into the sign at the Dash-In,” she said. “It looked like the truck broadsided the car and couldn’t stop.”

The front of the truck had hit the right side of the car, Hale said. The left side of the car then hit a pedestrian sign and went into the parking lot at the Shell gas station in the 200 block of Christiana Road. The left side of the car then hit a street light pole and the gas station sign, he said.

Traffic at the intersection was affected for about three hours as state police investigated and wreckage was cleared.

Tuesday’s crash hit Shakeeb Mahasneh hard, he said, because “she was coming here to my 7-Eleven.”

“She gets her coffee here every morning,” the business owner said.

“Very polite, very nice,” he said, adding she usually arrived wearing her Air Guard uniform.