A two-car collision in McKean County over the Labor Day weekend claimed the lives of six people and left two others with serious injuries. Authorities believe that a Kane, Pennsylvania, woman driving a Jeep Liberty crossed over the double yellow centerline over the weekend on U.S. Route 219. Pennsylvania State Police say that the Jeep collided head on with a Pontiac Bonneville around 4:25 Saturday afternoon.
The force of the impact was severe, and six people were killed from blunt force trauma in the wreck. The driver of the Jeep and a 10-year-old boy survived the crash. The driver was flown to a trauma center in Erie, Pennsylvania, while the boy was flown to Pittsburgh for treatment. Two children who had been riding in the Jeep perished.
Four people, all St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, residents who were traveling in the Pontiac were killed. Police say that all of the deceased died instantly in the violent fatal highway accident.
State investigators closed down the two-lane road for hours after the crash. Trained investigators with knowledge in accident reconstruction techniques pored over the scene to gather as much information as possible.
When a head-on collision occurs, news reports often move quickly across the Internet. Head-on crashes may be the kind of crash that terrifies most motorists, due to the potential for serious personal injury or death that can result from a head-on wreck. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials says that, though fairly rare, about 75 percent of all head-on collisions occur on two-lane undivided rural roads.
Head-on crashes can involve a wide variety of causes and contributing factors. Learning information about the cause of most any car accident can help victims or their families find closure, and information about the causes and contributing factors to a wreck can also be useful in developing safety measures to hopefully reduce the number of wrecks in the future.