Walking around the intersection of the U.S. 50 Bypass and SR 257, nine crosses lay by the highway.
They lay there along with shattered plastic from taillights and pieces of plastic or metal trim, long torn apart from their rightful places on an auto.
The crosses represent a life that has been taken in an accident at the intersection, seven lives in total have been killed since 2005.
This week, a stop light at the intersection will try to prevent what signs and signals could not, fatal accidents.
Some of the crosses are to remember friends that were lost in an instant, like Steve Durnil.
Durnil, a local businessman and the owner of Durnil Pest Control, was driving his 2006 Ford F-150 south on SR 257 at 9:57 a.m. in June 2007. He crossed the westbound lane, through the median and, according to reports, did not see an oncoming semi.
He hit the semi between the trailer’s front and rear axles, spun around and Durnil was ejected from the truck. Both Durnil and the driver, Morris Nowaskie Jr., 41, Vincennes, were taken to Daviess Community Hospital. Nowaskie was treated and released, but Durnil was taken via helicopter to St. Mary’s Hospital in Evansville. He died just after 1 p.m. from his injuries.
A cross is at the intersection in his memory. So are four crosses on the curb of the westbound lane of U.S. 50. Those four crosses are for a family that died just before Christmas in 2008.
The four, Evelyn Grimes 58, Tracy Grimes, 38, both of Vincennes and Ethel J. Leib, 80, Lawrenceville, Ill., and her husband, Donald Leib, 82, all died due to Leib’s 1999 Ford Crown Victoria crossing into the path of a semi who was heading west on U.S. 50.
Both Grimes, mother and daughter, and Ethel Leib died upon impact at the 4:02 p.m. accident. Donald Leib died while being transported to Daviess Community Hospital. The driver of the semi, Charles Osborne, 40, Shoals, was treated and released. The accident report said Leib’s car did not have the right-of-way.
Because of the damage from the wreckage, it took Washington Township Volunteer firefighters several hours to get the bodies out of the car.
According to state police, there have been 24 accidents at the crossing since 2005, with 28 injuries. Not all of them have been fatal.
One person, Rae Ann Brown, a treasurer at Washington High School, was in an accident at the intersection and survived. Brown, who lives just south of 50 on SR 257, uses the intersection every day to get to WHS. In the early 1990s, she was involved in an accident at the crossing.
“I was heading south (going home),” Brown said. “A pickup truck was coming from the east, he had his turn signal on ready to turn. As he got closer to me with his turn signal on, I went ahead and crossed. He changed his mind, evidently, it was all really new at the time.
“I think he thought he was up at SR 57 and then knew he was ready to turn at the wrong intersection and went on. So as I started to cross, he hit me and totaled my car.”
Brown had to spend a night in a hospital with a broken nose and a concussion. She now waits as long as she can before crossing the Bypass.
“I think most of them (accidents) have been because they do pull out thinking a car is going to turn, or a semi comes and they don’t see something on the other side of the semi truck either, and they’ll go on across,” Brown said. “I don’t think it’s neglect so much of the driver in the accident, it’s been the site or ... Now, I sit there and I wait. I’ll have a car even honk at me, but if they have their turn signal on, I’ve never pulled out since. I wait.”
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Deadly intersection to get stoplight — 1st of 3 parts
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