ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETTY HAYDEN
Icy conditions were to blame for several minor crashes Wednesday night in the New River Valley.
Radford and state police handled a chain-reaction wreck on Memorial Bridge at 7:45 p.m. that involved at least eight vehicles. Trooper Steve Hall said a pickup truck skidded on ice and struck the bridge, knocking out a section of railing. The driver came close to going over the bridge and into the New River, he said.
About seven vehicles on the Pulaski County side of the bridge ended up in rear-end collisions after a car stopped after seeing the pickup slide off the road. The bridge was blocked for more than an hour.
Meanwhile, on Interstate 81 in Montgomery County, Trooper Steve Fijalkowski had his hands full with three accidents in an hour and a half.
A vehicle pulling a car lost its trailer at 7:45 p.m. after the hitch broke. The car ended up in the median. Weather was not a factor.
While Fijalkowski was waiting for a tow truck, a van crossing a now-icy U.S. 460 bridge hit the guardrail, flipped on its side and slid about 50 feet. Robert Sibert, 64, and his wife, Elva, also 64, of Lothian, Md., received minor injuries. The trooper said he was lucky the van didn't hit him or his car.
"I noticed it [when] the sparks were flying by me," Fijalkowski said.
Shortly after the second crash, about four miles away, a truck pulling a trailer load of pine needle bales skidded on the Virginia 8 bridge on I-81 and hit the guardrail. The driver, Michael Anderson, 25, of Roanoke, was not seriously injured. No charges were filed in any of the accidents.
LENGTH: Short : 37 linesby CNB