Jackson County, IN — A woman and her infant son are lucky to be alive following a six-vehicle pileup in Jackson County, Indiana, on Wednesday, June 24, 2015. The accident took place on Interstate 65, near Seymour.
Local sources say that 30-year-old Karen Robbins and her 10-month-old son had stopped for traffic in a construction zone. An 18-wheeler failed to control its speed and slammed into the back of Robbin’s vehicle, pushing it beneath a box truck sitting in front of her vehicle.
While Robbins’ infant son suffered only a seat belt abrasion, Robbins herself suffered extensive injuries, including ten broken ribs, cuts and bruises, internal injuries, a broken collarbone, and a fractured ankle. Robbins is also pregnant. Luckily, she didn’t lose the baby.
Robbins was taken to a local hospital for her injuries. Her family has set up a GoFundMe page to help with medical bills. You can donate to that fund here.
The driver of the semi-truck hasn’t been identified. It’s unclear if he or anyone else was hurt in the crash.
The accident is currently being investigated.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
Being aware of what’s going on on the road is one of the most basic things that truck drivers have asked of them, so to see an accident that happened because the driver just wasn’t paying enough attention to the road is very disappointing, and more than a little disturbing. It’s not as if this accident happened on a dark road in the middle of the sun. The sun was in the sky, and the driver of the semi had a clear view of the road ahead. There’s no reason he shouldn’t have been able to see what was right in front of him.
Now, a woman is in the hospital with severe injuries. She has many surgeries to come and mounting medical bills. Who’s responsible for that? At the very least, it seems as if the trucking company has some tough questions to answer. Unfortunately, trucking companies can be notoriously bad at defending accidents like this. Evidence from the scene needs to be collected as quickly as possible, because in any accident like this, evidence is what’s going to prove the case.
Bottom line, drivers who cause accidents like this have to be held responsible for it. My fear would be that, once people started digging, they would find bigger problems, either with the driver or the company’s approach to safety standards. If that turned out to be case — and I’ll be the first to say that it doesn’t always, there are plenty of great, safe truck drivers out there on the road — it needs to be stopped. The goal is to keep accidents like this one from happening in the future.
— Grossman Law Offices
