I-80 Crash Damages Ambulance, Closes Pa. Highway

May 13--A Michigan man will be cited for his role in a multi-vehicle crash on Interstate 80 in Black Creek Twp. on Thursday night, police say.

No injuries were reported but a local ambulance was one of six damaged vehicles.

The crash happened around 10 p.m. at mile marker 251.1 as a Sugarloaf Twp. ambulance crew was handling a single tractor-trailer crash there.

That commercial vehicle was parked on the left shoulder after hitting a guide rail and the ambulance with its lights flashing was parked partially on the road ahead of the tractor-trailer.

Sugarloaf Twp. Fire Chief Duane Hildebrand said the ambulance crew made it out to the initial crash prior to firefighters who were en route.

The ambulance crew relayed to Luzerne County 911 that they were in a bad spot -- in the left lane around a curve near the village of Tank -- and needed someone to slow down traffic.

About 30 seconds later, Hildebrand heard the ambulance crew screaming over the radio as they notified first responders they had just witnessed and were involved in a multiple-vehicle crash.

Firefighters arrived to find the ambulance up against the guide rail at an angle because a tractor-trailer had crashed into its rear, Hildebrand said.

The ambulance company, he said, is still operating with one ambulance, however the damaged vehicle was the newer 2016 model with 11,000 miles on it.

According to state police at Hazleton, prior to the multi-vehicle collision, a second tractor-trailer driven by Rodica Vicol, 29, Brooklyn, New York, was traveling in the left lane and came to a complete stop there to avoid hitting the ambulance.

Two passenger vehicles -- one operated by Guillermo Torres, 53, Staten Island, New York, and another driven by Anthony Cancel, 42, Levittown, Bucks County -- stopped behind the tractor-trailer. But then another tractor-trailer approached from behind and its driver, Charles A. Thomas, 51, Detroit, Michigan, was unable to stop. Police say Thomas sideswiped the right side of the tractor-trailer on the roadside and the left sides of the passenger vehicles as they tried to merge into the right lane to avoid the collision.

Troopers said the collision caused one of the commercial vehicles to rear-end Sugarloaf Twp.'s ambulance.

Thomas, who was briefly confined and had to be removed by firefighters using rescue tools, will be cited for driving a vehicle at an unsafe speed, troopers said. Hiledbrand said it took about 10 minutes to free Thomas.

The damaged vehicles were towed and a portion of I-80 was closed to traffic for about two hours.

Assisting were Sugarloaf Twp. fire, Sugarloaf Twp. ambulance, Berwick ambulance, Sugarloaf Twp. police, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Department of Environmental Protection.

Firefighters, Hildebrand said, placed absorbent materials on the road to soak up spilled fuel and other fluids and DEP came out to monitor the leaks.

Contact the writer: achristman@standardspeaker.com; 570-501-3584

___ (c)2017 the Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, Pa.) Visit the Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, Pa.) at standardspeaker.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.