Terrible news

I’ve struggled for the past week over whether I should write something about the two fatal accidents near I-95. For those who don’t know, two teenagers died last Friday when a truck collided with their car after a power outage caused the traffic lights to go out. The other, and more gruesome, incident involved a body in the travel lanes of I-95 on Monday; the body, which has since been identified, was so badly mangled that police could not even identify it’s race or sex.

I’m weird when it comes to stories about death and have been since I was a reporter, which is why I couldn’t decide what, if anything, to write. There’s no need, however, to make this about me.

Police have launched an investigation into whether they were negligent in not securing the intersection of Route 175 and an I-95 off-ramp where the teens were killed. Apparently, the traffic lights went dark around 9:30 p.m., and a police officer was on the scene for a time shortly thereafter but left before marking the intersection with flares. Less than an hour later, Scott Caplan and Theresa Howard were dead.

This was a terribly unfortunate accident, made worse by the possibility of negligence. We have to wait for the results of the internal investigation before pointing fingers, but assigning blame is probably not the most important thing for the friends and families grieving the loss of these two young adults. In time, maybe. But not now.

My thoughts are with those who have lost. May they find peace and comfort to make it through these painful days.