THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 22, 1996 TAG: 9606220258
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 34 lines
Two people were killed, another was critically injured and four others also hurt in a multi-vehicle wreck Friday night on the Virginia Beach-Norfolk Expressway.
One vehicle caught fire, and the accident snarled traffic for hours.
The identities of the victims were being withheld until relatives could be notified.
The cause of the accident was unclear late Friday. A state police accident reconstruction team was on the scene.
State police spokeswoman Tammy Van Dame said the accident occurred about 9:38 p.m. in the westbound lanes near the First Colonial Road interchange. The wreck involved three cars and a sport utility vehicle.
Van Dame said it was the sport utility vehicle that caught fire and was destroyed, but she said the man driving it and an infant strapped in a safety seat escaped. The child was not hurt.
Three other people were trapped in another car, however, and two of them were pronounced dead at the scene.
The third person was taken to the Trauma Center at Virginia Beach General Hospital with what were described as ``life-threatening injuries.''
The accident forced the closure of the westbound lanes, and eastbound traffic was reduced to a single lane because of the number of emergency vehicles on the scene. Local police closed all on-ramps to the expressway in both directions between the Oceanfront and Lynnhaven Parkway.
``It's just a sea of lights,'' Van Dame said of the stalled traffic.
The westbound lanes were expected to remained closed until early today.
KEYWORDS: ACCIDENT TRAFFIC FATALITIES INJURIES by CNB