A 27-year-old woman from Connecticut was killed in a four-vehicle accident on Interstate 78 on Aug. 28, 2016.
CLINTON TWP. - A 27-year-old woman from Connecticut was killed in a four-vehicle accident on Interstate 78 on Sunday afternoon, State Police Sgt. Jeff Flynn confirmed Monday.
Ekaterina Cherynkh, of Bridgeport, Conn. was pronounced dead at the scene of the 1:26 p.m. accident. The other rear-seat passenger, a 31-year-old Matawan man, was seriously hurt.
The crash was one of two on Interstate 78 in Hunterdon County on Sunday, and the seventh fatal accident this year on a 30-mile stretch of the expressway from the Pennsylvania border to the Interstate 287 interchange in Somerset County.
Traffic was tied up on Interstates 78 and 287, as well as on Routes 22 and 31, in Central Jersey for much of the day, with an additional incident, a car carrier fire on Interstate 287 in Bernards, adding to the delays.
The fatal accident began when a Land Rover traveling east near milepost 23 near the borders of Clinton and Readington townships ran off the left side of the road and into a wooden embankment before going airborne and striking two westbound vehicles, Flynn said.
Fatal accident was 7th on this stretch of I-78
The right-rear passenger in one of the vehicles hit by the Land Rover, a Honda Accord, was ejected, Flynn said. The Land Rover was then struck by a westbound Ford Expedition.
Kwabena Owusu-Dapaah, 58, of Annandale, the driver of the Land Rover, and the second rear-seat Honda passenger were airlifted to Morristown Medical Center. Their conditions were not available as of Monday morning.
Neither of those two men nor Cherynkh were wearing seat belts, according to Flynn.
The occupants of the fourth vehicle, a Lexus GS, involved in the accident, suffered non-life threatening injuries, Flynn said.
A separate accident that happened on westbound Interstate 78 in Union Township on Sunday morning injured two people.
The driver of a 2002 Ford Explorer struck a Pontiac Grand Prix as he was moving from the left to the center lane near milepost 12.8 at about 9:45 a.m, State Police Sgt. Jeff Flynn said.
The Pontiac left the expressway and struck a guardrail. The Explorer also truck a guardrail and overturned, Flynn said.
Flynn said the driver and the passenger in the Explorer were stable condition at Morristown Memorial Hospital as of 3:30 p.m. Sunday. No one in the Pontiac was badly hurt.