Tammy Payne and her husband were headed from Ocean City, Md., to catch a flight to Miami for a Caribbean cruise. On the way to the airport Saturday, they planned to stop in Bowie to drop off some of the kids sports’ trophies and photographs they sell.
Instead Payne, 59, put her photography skills to use documenting the “chaos” of a 43-vehicle pileup on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that left 13 people injured, including two who were taken to a Baltimore hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries.
“In terms of vehicles involved, I’m unable to remember any in recent history with more,” said Sgt. Brady McCormick of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police. McCormick said no additional information would be released until a full investigation of the “complicated” crash was completed, including whether any criminal charges are justified.
Advertisement
Payne said that when her husband pulled onto the bridge at about 7:30 a.m., the sky was clear. But almost immediately, they hit “a wall of fog.” There was record fog across the United States over the past few days as warm air from the Gulf of Mexico met cold air near the ground chilled by frigid temperatures and snow, causing flight delays and car crashes in multiple states. The Maryland Transportation Authority put out a warning on social media about “foggy conditions” Friday morning but not Saturday morning.
“You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face; there was absolutely no vision,” Payne said. “One minute you could see, and the next minute it was gone.”
Then the Paynes heard the sounds of cars colliding. Through the fog, which Payne said was “impenetrable” for about 10 minutes, they could make out only the lights of the vehicle ahead of them as it crashed into the next car ahead. Her husband managed to swerve into the left lane just in time to avoid joining the collision. A big rig slid in behind them, shielding their van from damage.
Her husband called 911, hollering that the police needed to shut down the bridge. He was told they were already on it. Paramedics soon arrived; unable to get ambulances through the logjam, they carried stretchers on foot through stopped traffic. One told Payne a man smoking a cigarette out his window had smashed into a guardrail, severing his arm.
The grisly scene will no doubt add to the mythology of a bridge that inspires so much fear in some people that they pay to have someone drive them across. There are no shoulders to pull over on the 4.3-mile stretch; it is only two lanes on one span and three on the other, with traffic sometimes going both ways on a span. The low railings can make a plunge into the water below seem all too likely.
Advertisement
But such catastrophes are actually pretty rare, and statistics indicate the bridge is actually much safer than other state roads. Between 500 and 600 people are killed in crashes in Maryland every year; generally only one or two of those fatal collisions occur on the Bay Bridge.
Few survive falls, but one woman whose car was pushed off the bridge by a truck in 2013 managed to climb out her broken window and swim to safety.
Others hate the bridge because any crash means long delays on a route already plagued by terrible traffic. (Expansion plans would cost billions.)
Five hours passed before the Paynes were able to get off the bridge. They missed their flight but caught one in time for their cruise.
Payne, from the deck of a ship headed to Grenada, said she and her husband never had misgivings about the bridge. They drive it regularly and take part in an annual walk across its length. The giant crash, she said, actually “renewed my faith in humanity that when something horrible happens, everybody pulls together.”
But, she said, the bridge “should never have been open for fog this thick.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLGkecydZK%2BZX2d9c4COaWhoamhksKmx0pqnnpmbmnqjrdhmmauhlJyybq%2FRmqqhZaeewa%2Bx0qxkn6eXZA%3D%3D