Accident

Driver and passenger were reportedly doing stunts on the ice

Two people in New Jersey abandoned their pickup truck in a frozen river with a dog inside, after an attempt at some winter daredevilry went awry.

Authorities were alerted by a call just after midnight on Saturday, reporting that a pickup truck had driven onto the frozen Toms River near Pine Beach, N.J. and was doing “donuts” on the ice.

“The headlight and brake lights could be seen from the shoreline as the vehicle headed South and West towards the other side of the river,” the Toms River Police Department said in a statement. “After a period of time went by the lights suddenly were no longer visible.”

Sergeant First Class Gregory Williams of the New Jersey State Police Dive team told the New York Daily News that police found the submerged vehicle around 3 p.m. on Sunday with a frozen dog inside.

Toms River Police said that two individuals have turned themselves in for questioning in connection with the incident.

No fatalities were reported but some injuries were serious

(ETNA, Maine) — More than 70 vehicles got tangled up in a series of chain-reaction pileups Wednesday along a snowy stretch of Interstate 95 in Maine, injuring at least 17 people, state police said.

The pileups in Etna, near Bangor, happened at about 7:30 a.m. and involved several cars, a school bus and a tractor-trailer, state police spokesman Steve McCausland said. No fatalities were immediately reported, but McCausland said some of the injuries were serious.

Emergency personnel climbed on top of cars to reach motorists stuck in the middle of the jumble of vehicles. McCausland said one veteran trooper described the site as a “giant pile of metal.”

State police said the crash was the biggest in Maine in more than 15 years.

Rhonda Kent, an occupational therapist from Saint Albans, said her car was sideswiped amid the pileup, which sent cars and trucks spinning. Kent, who was not injured, said a logging truck came dangerously close to hitting her and spun off into a ditch.

“It was almost surreal, something you see in the movies,” Kent said.

Both northbound lanes on a 30-mile stretch of highway were closed for five hours, and drivers were told to take other exits to avoid the area. One northbound lane reopened around 12:30 p.m.; the other opened several hours later.

Two hospitals reported taking in 17 patients, some in serious condition. One person at the scene of the crash had a heart attack and some people suffered broken bones, police said. Two students and two adults on the bus were shaken up but not injured.

Police said the main crash involved more than 25 vehicles, and there were a series of other wrecks leading up to the crash site. Some of the crashes involved two or three vehicles, and then other vehicles went off the road to avoid hitting them.

State Police Lt. Sean Hashey said he was “absolutely shocked that we don’t have any fatalities.”

He said the crashes were likely the result of poor visibility, slippery roads and speed but cautioned that reconstructing exactly how the events unfolded could be impossible.

“We’ll never know exactly who hit who,” Hashey said. “It was just such a mess of vehicles.”

At a travel stop in nearby Newburgh, people involved in the crash gathered to give statements to police and wait to see their wrecked vehicles. Some were keeping warm in a parked school bus. Workers at the truck stop reported seeing more than a dozen ambulances try to access the highway from a nearby ramp.

Rose Butts, a hotel housekeeper from Plymouth, said she swerved to miss part of the accident and hit a snow bank. She and a friend were not injured but waited in her car for five hours for help.

“We’re thankful that we’re both alive and both OK,” she said.

Dylan Carroll, a Plymouth auto mechanic, said he swerved and hit a snow bank before a garbage truck spun out, tapped his car and blocked him. He was not injured.

“I thought it was going to be much worse than it was,” Carroll said.

There was at least an inch of snow on the ground at the time of the crash, according to the National Weather Service. Snow was forecast to fall throughout the day with total accumulations of 5 to 9 inches.

Emergency officials ordered some residents to evacuate and conserve water

A train carrying crude oil in southern West Virginia derailed Monday, setting at least one house on fire and spilling oil into the state’s largest river, according to local news reports.

Authorities ordered residents within a mile and a half of the derailment to evacuate, according to WSAZ. The Charleston Daily Mail reports a CSX train went off the tracks at 1:20 p.m. ET, according to a spokesman for the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety.

Following the crash, West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for Kanawha and Fayette counties.

“State officials are on site and will continue to work with local and federal officials, as well as CSX representatives, throughout the incident,” said Tomblin in a statement released by his office.

No injuries have been reported, and a shelter was set up at a local high school. The spill into the Kanawha River shut down some sources of water typically supplied to residents and led the state’s health department to ask them to conserve resources.

Train derailment and fire in Fayette County. @charleywest @wvgazette http://t.co/iBa3VFkZxJ—
Tega McGuffin (@tegamcguffin) February 16, 2015

A variety of state and local offices, including the Fayette County Fire Department, Bureau for Public Health, state police and the governor’s office, are responding to the derailment.

'It is a devastating tragedy'

"Ma'am, stop yelling" said a 911 operator to a distressed teen

A Maryland operator on a 911 call told a teenage girl to “stop whining” while her father lay dying on the Baltimore Washington Parkway.

Rick Warrick, 38, was struck by a car in a hit and run when he leaned down to change a flat tire along the parkway in Anne Arundel County, NBC reports. He and his fiancee and two teenage children were on their way to Dave & Buster’s when their tire went flat.

Warrick’s teenage daughter called 911 when her father and fiancee were struck. When the teen asks, “Can y’all please hurry up!” the operator says, “Ma’am, stop yelling, I need a location.” When the operator asks if two people were struck, the girl responds, “Yes they both…” Then the operator says “Ok, let’s stop whining. Ok, let’s stop whining it’s hard to understand you.”

The operator used a poor choice of words, said Russ Davis of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. “However, what he was attempting to do was to get her attention, to start ascertaining information from her,” Davis said.

The driver who struck Warrick hasn’t come forward.

[NBC]