DATE: Thursday, June 26, 1997               TAG: 9706260408

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NAOMI AOKI, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   96 lines

POLICE WERE TRAILING DRIVER KILLED ON BRIDGE-TUNNEL

A woman killed Tuesday evening on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was speeding away from a police officer when she veered into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a tractor-trailer, a bridge-tunnel spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Police are not releasing the identity of the dead woman until a positive identification is made. Her body was burned beyond recognition in a fire started by the crash, said the spokeswoman, Lorraine Smith.

Police are awaiting medical records to make an identification. Police initially said the woman was 18, but now believe she was older, Smith said.

The tractor-trailer driver, John Parker, 28, of Jenkins Bridge, on Virginia's Eastern Shore, suffered minor injuries to his upper thigh, Smith said. He was treated at the scene.

No other vehicles were involved and no one else was injured, Smith said. The collision halted all traffic on the bridge-tunnel for three hours. Both lanes reopened at 9:35 p.m.

The woman, who was driving north in a gray 1984 Ford Crown Victoria, ran through the toll plaza without paying the $10 toll shortly before the crash at 6:15 p.m., Smith said. A toll collector called ahead to a police officer at the first island with a description of the car.

When the officer signaled the woman to pull over, she looped around the island and headed south toward Virginia Beach, Smith said. The officer pulled out and began following the Crown Victoria. It was not a high-speed pursuit, Smith said.

The woman then accelerated and veered into the lane of oncoming traffic to pass another car. She stayed in the lane and collided head-on with the tractor-trailer. The truck's flatbed was empty.

The officer turned off her siren and backed off the pursuit when the driver accelerated beyond the speed limit, said Clement Pruitt, chief of the bridge-tunnel police.

Paul Traub of Virginia Beach and Mike Lex of Chesapeake were fishing in a boat about 200 yards from the crash scene. They said they heard the wail of a police siren about 10 seconds before the collision.

The crash created a deafening screech of metal scraping against metal, Traub and Lex said. Traub saw the collision. The impact sent debris into the water, and the car into the air and onto the guardrail, he said.

``We just knew someone was seriously hurt,'' Traub said. ``There were three of us on the boat. After we saw it, there was total silence. It shook me up, made my knees jittery.''

The two men said they heard a man screaming at people to ``get back, get back.'' Lex said he saw a Winnebago trying to back away from the wreckage.

They said they saw flames immediately after the impact. Minutes later, they heard three explosions, they said.

``After the first explosion, I saw a ball of flames,'' Traub said.

``Three or four minutes later, we heard a second, tremendous explosion,'' Lex said. ``You could almost feel the Bay rock.''

Flames leaped 20 to 25 feet into the air, they estimated, and the wind blew a giant plume of black smoke westward. Witnesses reported seeing flames and black smoke from miles away.

Parker, the truck driver, got out of the truck immediately after the impact, Smith said. He was driving for Floyd Energy Co. of Belle Haven on the Eastern Shore.

The Crown Victoria was crushed from the impact and both vehicles were destroyed by the fire, Smith said.

The crash and fire also damaged a 20-foot section of guardrail, the curb and the asphalt roadbed, Smith said.

The guardrail was repaired temporarily Tuesday night. Permanent repairs will be made beginning at 5 a.m. today and are expected to take four hours, Chief Pruitt said. One lane of traffic will be closed but, Pruitt said, delays should last only a few minutes.

The estimated cost of repairing the guardrail and curb is $3,000 to $5,000, Pruitt said.

The asphalt will also be repaired but, Pruitt said, those repairs have not been scheduled. He did not know Wednesday what the asphalt repairs would cost.

The bridge is structurally sound. The wreckage has been cleared away and traffic Wednesday was moving, Smith said.

On Wednesday, both Traub and Lex questioned why the officer attempted to pull over the woman on the narrow bridge, with traffic moving in both directions.

``It wasn't a high-speed pursuit, but the officer was definitely behind her,'' Traub said. ``It stands to reason with all the controversy over police pursuits - on a two-lane bridge like that. Why not wait until she got off the bridge and just radio ahead to other officers?''

Pruitt said he would not consider Tuesday night's events a pursuit. He said the officer's main purpose was to learn why the woman had run the toll. Sometimes, he said, drivers get lost or disoriented.

He also said the officer quickly backed down and turned off her siren when the woman accelerated above the speed limit.

He said officers may stop a pursuit any time they believe it is unsafe. Pursuits are also monitored by a supervisor who would call off any pursuit that becomes dangerous, Pruitt said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

BETH BERGMAN

FILE PHOTO

The wreckage of a car involved in a collision with a tractor-trailer

is removed from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. KEYWORDS: POLICE CHASE ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITY

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