Three Marine recruits were killed when a truck rear-ended them in Warren Township, Ohio on March 31st. Please keep the families of these young men in your thoughts and prayers.
The recruits, all Ohioans, were traveling on State Route 5, in Leavittsburg, Ohio, on their way to take their military entrance exams in Cleveland. Leavittsburg is about 25 miles northwest of Youngstown.
The passenger vehicle the men were traveling in was waiting at a traffic light before entering the intersection of Market and Burnett Streets in Leavittsburg around 3:45 p.m. when it was slammed into from behind by a pickup truck behind them that was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer, according to Ohio State Highway Patrol officials. The impact of the pickup hitting the recruit’s vehicle forced it into the busy intersection where it was struck by what Ohio State Highway Patrol officials describe as “several other vehicles.” Several people in the other vehicles were injured and were treated at local hospitals.
The head of the Warren Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Lt. Joe Dragovich, stated that mechanical failure has been ruled out as a cause of this accident following a post-crash investigation of the big rig. Dragovich indicated that one of his questions for the driver of the tractor-trailer was whether or not he had been talking on his cell phone or texting at the time of the crash. The Ohio State Highway Patrol is continuing their investigation of this tragic crash.
In my experience, every truck accident has a cause. It now falls to investigators, law enforcement officials and qualified attorneys to help discover the cause of this accident so that justice may be served and also so that anything learned may be used to help prevent similar events in the future.
