Wesley Merrick Death – Following a six-vehicle collision on Interstate 81 at Showalter Road on Friday, September 1st, 2023, two residents of New York state perished, and three additional persons were taken to nearby hospitals, according to Maryland State Police. Emergency service personnel said they received a report of a crash at 9:34 a.m. on Friday morning on southbound I-81 at the 10-mile marker. Around 4 p.m. on Friday, southbound I-81 was still blocked off in that area while state police looked into the collision.
Wesley Merrick and Alicia Eve Cornell’s cause of death
Several vehicles were blocking southbound I-81 at Exit 3 for U.S. 11, and traffic was slowly leaving the motorway in long lines, according to a camera maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Elena Russo, a state police spokeswoman, and a news release identified the deceased as Wesley Merrick, 55, and Alicia Eve Cornell, 46, both of Wellsville, New York. Wellsville is located just north of the Pennsylvania state line, 44 miles west of Corning, New York.
According to the preliminary inquiry, Merrick was operating a Chevrolet Tahoe when it collided with the back of a tractor-trailer that had started to slow because of traffic. As a result, a pickup vehicle, three more tractor-trailers, and three others collided with one another. At the Tahoe, Cornell was seated at the back, on the left. Two additional Tahoe passengers were sent to nearby hospitals.
Alicia Eve Cornell Death
Carrie Merrick, 49, the wife of Merrick, was transported by state police aircraft to the University of Maryland’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Centre in Baltimore. She was riding in the front seat. According to state police, the other passenger in the backseat, Kevin Dye, 59, of New York, was transported by ambulance to Meritus Medical Centre east of Hagerstown. According to state police, one of the tractor-trailers’ drivers, Darrin Wayne Shank Jr., 55, of Williamsport, was also transported to Meritus.
Shank was operating a tractor-trailer for Richmond, Virginia-based Estes Express Lines. Three further patients, according to R. David Hays, director of Washington County Emergency Services, refused to be transferred to the hospital. Five people, including the two dead, were trapped in cars when rescue personnel arrived, according to Hays.
Injured victims transported to hospital
One of the captive people was able to escape by themselves. According to him, one was transferred to Shock Trauma, and the other was taken to Meritus. The two fatalities, according to state police, were declared dead at the spot. According to Hays, until it was judged that it was no longer required on the scene, the state’s Go-Team, a group of surgeons with blood units for trauma patients, was being airlifted to the scene from Shock Trauma.
Without including police, Hays claimed that more than 60 emergency workers attended the accident. The rehab unit and the hazmat team from Washington County both responded, helping to care for emergency workers who had been working in the heat for a while.
Wesley Merrick and Alicia Eve Cornell’s obituary and funeral arrangements will be released by their families at a later date.
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