Allen County,IN : 4 dead after recent crashes; 1 driver charged on December, Tuesday 19th 2017

Four people died in separate vehicle crashes in Allen and Kosciusko counties in the past week, the Allen County coroner and Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday.

In Allen County, three deaths brought the number of fatal vehicle crash victims to 42 this year, the county coroner said. The three deaths were ruled accidental due to blunt force trauma.

On Saturday, Chelsie A. Montgomery, 29, was thrown from her 2007 Chevy Traverse at 3:26 a.m. when she collided with a 2006 Ford F-150 pickup at Pontiac at Clinton streets. She was not wearing a seat belt, according to the coroner.

The pickup driver, Erick Martinez Rivera, 27, of the 3000 block of Stinson Drive, was driving south on Clinton when he ran a red light at a high rate of speed, police said.

Rivera was initially charged Monday with felony criminal recklessness. Prosecutors added additional charges of causing death while operating a vehicle while intoxicated, a felony, and misdemeanor operating a vehicle while intoxicated endangering a person. He was released from the Allen County Jail on $13,250 bond, a jail spokesman said.

On Monday, Daniel J. Simpson, 61, died near Fort Wayne International Airport when his vehicle and another vehicle collided about 12:15 p.m.

Simpson, from Fort Wayne, who was wearing a seat belt, was driving south on 10th Street. His car was broadsided by a pickup traveling east on Ferguson Road, police said.

About 6:30 p.m. Dec. 12, Jason Tavassol, 37, of Fort Wayne fell off the hood of a car he had jumped onto on Laddie Lane at Coldwater Road in an apparent domestic dispute, according to a Fort Wayne police report. He fell off the hood as the car turned onto Coldwater and landed on the road, where he was struck by an oncoming car. Tavassol died Thursday from injuries, the coroner said.

Also Monday, Lee G. Springer, 59, of Decatur died after the truck he was driving hit a utility pole in Kosciusko County, police said.

Springer went off the road at Indiana 19 and County Road 800 North at 10:47 a.m., the Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department said. Springer's 2002 Ford F-250 struck a fence and the pole before the vehicle came to rest in a field near Etna Green. Springer died at the scene.

Source :
4 dead after recent crashes; 1 driver charged