Car flips, lands on top of an oncoming vehicle
on Route 95 in Pawtucket Tuesday, going
airborne over the Jersey barrier and landing
on the vehicle at right in the highway’s northbound lanes. Rich Dugas/The Times
The driver of the Mercury, Marc A. Muser, 21, of Livingston, N.J., crawled from what was left of his car. He was taken to Rhode Island Hospital for a possible foot injury and released. He was also arrested for possession of an undisclosed amount of marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms.
Police said they may file motor vehicle charges against Muser, depending on the results of the Accident Reconstruction Unit.He will be held overnight, according to police, and is scheduled for arraignment in the morning.
The driver of the Subaru, Mary S. Rexter, 31, of Helen Avenue, Coventry, was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with one foot nearly severed by the dashboard and a leg that had been collapsed and crushed by the steering wheel. Police said she may also have had head and torso injuries.
Further information on Rexter’s condition was unavailable from hospital officials.
Rexter’s young son, age 2, was lifted from his car seat, kicking and screaming, for treatment of a bump on his head. Another son, age 4, was admitted to Hasbro Children’s Hospital with unspecified injuries.
Ann Favata, 24, also of Coventry, who was riding in the passenger seat of Rexter’s vehicle, was admitted to Rhode Island Hospital with lacerations to the face, mouth and head.
Meanwhile, thousands of drivers got stuck on the highway, both north and southbound, as state police troopers shut down the highway at the curve between School Street and the TK Club on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Police and firefighters rushed to the highway from every possible direction after switchboards at both headquarters were lit up by highway travellers with cell phones Tuesday at 1 p.m.
Battalion Chief Michael Carter pulled up and immediately ordered dispatch to begin calling for rescue crews from surrounding towns. Rescue crews from Central Falls, Attleboro, North Attleboro and North Providence responded.
Rexter was trapped, her wagon pushed up against the median, turned into the high speed lane.
"The dashboard was crushed on top of the driver, so we had to cut that back and cut the steering wheel away, too," Carter said. "We used about every took we had, the Jaws of Life, Sawzall and prying tools."
The Subaru had its roof peeled back, exposing the front and back seats to the air, and the doors were pulled off. The driver’s seat was partially cut away and part of the dashboard lay on the highway beside the wagon.
The Cougar was in even worse shape. It roof was flattened and its windshield was gone, though the windshield for the Subaru was snagged on the hood of the car. The Subaru bumper was also tangled on the front of the Cougar.
The front bumper for the Cougar, along with its battery, was 30 yards south of the car on the side of Route 95 north.
Muser, a young man with shoulder-length brown hair, ignored his car while watching intently as rescue workers pried Rexter from the Subaru. She could be heard crying. His face was flecked with blood. Muser retrieved a duffel bag, backpack and flattened Mac I-Book from the car.
Rescue workers recognized Rexter, a Pawtucket native who moved out of the city as an adult.
Thirty-five minutes after the accident, troopers asked Ed Breault and David Roy of Crown Collision to begin sweeping glass shards and car parts from the highway. Route 95 south had one lane open shortly after 1 p.m. Route 95 north was closed for 45 minutes, then reopened after the destroyed cars were towed away. The traffic backed up well past Attleboro to the north and to Warwick to the south. A second, related accident, was cleared from Route 95 south. The accident is under investigation by the state police accident reconstruction team.
ACCIDENT SCENE: A firefighter investigates
the interior of a car that rolled over from the southbound into the northbound lanes of
Route 95 near the School Street exit early yesterday afternoon. The crash caused
accidents involving two other vehicles that
blocked both sides of the highway for a short time.
A 4-year-old boy was critically injured, and his mother seriously injured, the state police said. They were removed from the car that was crushed with the use of mechanical extrication tools.
The accident occurred at 12:55 p.m., just north of the School Street overpass. It tied up traffic on both sides of Route 95 for several hours, said state police Lt. Stephen Bannon.
Mary Rexter, 31, of Coventry, whose car was crushed by the one that flipped over the Jersey barrier, was still being evaluated at Rhode Island Hospital last night, a nursing supervisor said. Brett Rexter, her 4-year-old son, was in critical condition at Hasbro Children's Hospital. Her 2-year-old son was treated and released from Hasbro.
A front-seat passenger, Ann Favata, was in the Rhode Island Hospital emergency room and still being evaluated, the nursing supervisor said. Her age and city or town were unavailable last night.
Marc Muser, 21, of Livingston, N.J., was arrested and held last night at Lincoln state police barracks on charges of simple possession of marijuana and psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms," a hallucinogen.
Muser may also face motor vehicle violation charges. He was to be arraigned today in District Court. Muser was in the 1995 Mercury that collided with one car, then hit the Jersey barrier and flipped over onto Rexter's car, Bannon said. Muser was treated and released from Rhode Island Hospital.
Celia Marques, 18, of Central Falls, who was driving the 1993 Ford that Muser's car hit, was not injured, Bannon said.
A state police accident reconstruction team is still trying to sort out what happened, Bannon said, "but from what we have gathered so far," Muser was traveling south on Route 95, when his car struck another in the middle lane.
"It looks as though he [Muser] made a lane change then came into contact with the vehicle that Ms. Marques was driving," Bannon said, "and that set everything else in
Next, Muser's car hit the Jersey barrier, then "careened over the barrier and ended up upside down as it traveled through the air," Bannon said.
Muser's Mercury landed on Rexter's 1998 Subaru, Bannon said. The Pawtucket Fire Department pulled the children and the two adults, Rexter and Favata, from the car.
State police are seeking witnesses to the initial collision on southbound Route 95, Bannon said. They are asked to call the Lincoln Barracks at 444-1100.
