DATE: Friday, August 15, 1997               TAG: 9708150728

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   31 lines

WRECK ON I-85 KILLS 3 FROM PORTSMOUTH

A Portsmouth woman and two of her daughters died Thursday afternoon when the car they were in was crushed between two tractor-trailer trucks in a chain-reaction collision in Durham, N.C., police said.

Lavoris Pearson, 36, of the 2500 block of Hickory St. and her daughters, Shanice, 7, and Shavonne, 5, were pronounced dead at the scene. Police said the driver, Kenneth Lee Pearson, suffered only a minor injury and ``was walking around at the scene.''

The accident, which sent seven other people to hospitals with non life-threatening injuries, occurred on I-85 northbound at 12:23 p.m.

Durham Police Sgt. J.W. Piatt said six cars and five tractor-trailer trucks were involved in the wreck, which began when a car hit a guardrail and then spun out of control.

``Everyone else was collected up in the accident trying to avoid it,'' Piatt said Thursday night.

The car the Pearsons were in was first hit from behind by a truck, pushed into a van and then shoved under the trailer of another truck he said.

Kenneth Pearson, Lavoris' husband, ``was saved by an air bag,'' Piatt said.

A dozen other people also escaped injury. But for the mother and her daughters, the nature of the accident was such that wearing seat belts ``didn't matter,'' he said.

The pileup forced officials to reroute traffic for eight hours. KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITIES

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