Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 20, 1993 TAG: 9305200006
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: EVERGREEN, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
One victim was a 20-year-old woman heading home from an evening at her fiance's home. They planned to marry next month.
"I've seen trucks and automobiles hit a pier head-on before, and maybe there would be a chip or crack. But I've never seen one taken out like that before," said State Highway Director Mack Roberts.
State troopers said it was too early to determine if the truck was speeding or the driver fell asleep. Investigators had not been able to talk with the driver, Norbert Gunter, who was hospitalized in Florida, or get results from blood testing.
Gunter, 48, of Milton, Fla., was in fair condition at a hospital Wednesday. The truck, which was When the support collapsed, half the bridge that carries a county road over the interstate crashed into the southbound lane. A cloud of dust rose from the wreckage, and a car and a second truck crashed into it, witnesses said. carrying a tanker filled with concrete powder, swerved off a secluded straightaway in rural south Alabama, some 80 miles south of Montgomery, state troopers said.
It skimmed along the shoulder of the road for about 150 feet, eluding a guardrail, and slammed into the two-columned, concrete support.
When the support collapsed, half the bridge that carries a county road over the interstate crashed into the southbound lane. A cloud of dust rose from the wreckage, and a car and a second truck crashed into it, witnesses said.
"It felt like the whole world was falling in," said Jessie Floyd, 87, whose house is about 100 yards from the overpass.
The woman killed was Stephanie Marie Frazier of Evergreen. Also killed was Ed Dancy III, 37, of Birmingham, Ala.
Johnny Blackmon, a sheriff's investigator, speculated that the concrete mix on the 18-wheeler created a cloud of dust that obscured the bridge from motorists.
by CNB