By Pamela Lehman
Morning Call
EAST ALLEN TWP., Pa. — Two ambulance crew members were hurt when a large chunk of ice flew off a passing truck, crashed through their windshield and hurtled to the back of their ambulance Wednesday in East Allen Township.
Because the Hanover Township, Northampton County ambulance crew was not seriously injured, state police said they could not cite the truck driver for failing to clear his vehicle. A 2006 law states a driver can be charged and fined as much as $1,000 if falling ice causes serious injury or death.
"Really, what's it going to take until they change that law?" asked township Fire Chief Scott Milham. "They are very lucky they weren't killed, because that ice really did some damage to the ambulance."
The ice chunk, which police estimated was 3 feet by 2 feet, hit the ambulance with such force it crushed the windshield and a camera mounted to the front dash and sprayed ice pieces and shards of glass throughout the vehicle, Milham said.
Police said the driver of the truck, Earl Seese II of Easton, failed to stop at the scene.
State police at Bethlehem said they had reports from seven other drivers across the Valley whose vehicles were struck with flying ice on Monday. All of the chunks of ice came off tractor-trailers and none of the trucks stopped, police said.
Those reports were in addition to six released earlier by state police at Bethlehem and Hamburg. They happened Monday in the Valley and Berks County and involved ice falling off rigs and a sport utility vehicle.
At the ambulance accident scene Wednesday morning along Route 329 in East Allen, ambulance Capt. Karen Van Why made hurried phone calls and pointed at the shattered windshield.
"That is what happens when they don't clear the ice," she said.
Her crew had been in "non-emergency mode," without the emergency lights or siren on, Van Why said. "They were just trying to do their jobs and go to a call."
According to state police at Bethlehem:
Seese was driving the tractor portion of a tractor-trailer east on Route 329 around 11:15 a.m. when the ice chunk flew off the roof and hit the ambulance.
The ambulance was responding to a medical call and traveling west on the highway.
The ambulance driver, Jessica Strivelli, 22, of Saylorsburg, had moderate head injuries. Her passenger, Danielle Westgate, 25, of Bethlehem, had minor hand cuts.
Two passing motorists saw the ice fly off the truck. One called in Seese's license plate, and the other followed behind and told police what direction the truck was going until police pulled it over.
Police said Seese's truck was eventually stopped on Airport Road at Route 22.
Seese could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Hours after the crash, Westgate said she and her partner had both been released from St. Luke's Hospital-Fountain Hill after treatment.
She said the trucking industry should be responsible for de-icing.
"Fine the companies, not necessarily the drivers, because it's not always the driver's responsibility," Westgate said. "Money talks and if companies are being fined for this, you'll start to see reform."
State Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, said she wants state and local police to be able to fine drivers whose ice-topped vehicles pose a threat to other drivers.
"This is just one more horror story and one more reason why we need to make this law tougher," Boscola said Wednesday. "I think the only way to get people to listen is to hit them in their pocketbook and make the fines heavier and heavier."
She said the current state legislation had been weakened by special interest groups within the trucking industry who argued more drivers would be hurt or killed trying to climb their rigs to remove ice.
"I've gotten some calls from truckers who are sympathetic to the problem," she said Wednesday, "but said their companies won't invest in ice-removing equipment."
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