Seconds before a five-car crash killed two people Wednesday afternoon near the Fort Duquesne Bridge, a McKees Rocks man was stunned by how fast a black SUV zipped and weaved through the traffic around him on Route 65.
“He was flying as soon as he merged onto the highway,” Nicholas Hunter, 46, who was riding in an SUV headed Downtown around 3 p.m., told Triblive on Thursday. “We were behind him doing 60 (mph) and this guy just left us in the dust.”
Hunter grabbed his phone and started recording.
The video, which he shared with TribLive, appeared to show the SUV driven by Michael Smith, 52, of Sheraden as it roared into a ramp headed toward the Fort Duquesne Bridge.
Hunter’s phone didn’t catch the crash. But his video did capture the response inside the SUV he was riding.
“Oh! Oh my God!” Hunter shouted at the moment the SUV leapt off the ramp and plummeted about 30 feet to Reedsdale Street below on the North Shore. “That guy’s dead! That guy’s (expletive) dead — oh my God!”
An acquaintance had picked up Hunter, a South Boston native, and Hunter’s fiance at their Island Avenue apartment around 2:40 p.m. The SUV crossed the Allegheny River on the McKees Rocks Bridge, turned right on Ohio River Boulevard and headed toward Pittsburgh’s central business district.
The SUV driven by Smith jumped onto the highway from a ramp on the North Side — rapidly, Hunter said.
“He comes up that ramp flying. That’s what got my attention,” Hunter said. “He had to be doing 80 (mph) off the ramp.”
While Hunter filmed the SUV zip toward the bridge, he said his glasses started bothering him. He briefly pointed away the phone.
“Literally, a millisecond later is when the crash happened,” he said.
When the roadway came back into view of the video, the SUV was nowhere to be seen. Four cars were scattered across the road amid debris. Traffic came to a standstill.
Authorities say Smith was ejected from his vehicle. He died instantly.
First responders rushed another motorist, Danielle Jackman, 58, of Churchill to UPMC Mercy hospital in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood. She died there within an hour of the crash, the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s office said.
Cara Cruz, a Pittsburgh police spokeswoman, said Hunter’s videos are part of the investigation.
It remained unclear Thursday how Smith’s vehicle flipped over the roadway’s concrete barriers or how far it fell to the street below.
The Route 65 ramp headed into the bridge rises from 20 to 34 feet above the ground, according to Steve Cowan, a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation spokesman, said. The ramp’s Jersey barriers are 32 inches tall.
“Until the department receives the crash report, we will not know where the car left the ramp,” Cowan said.
Authorities said about 10 people were involved in the crash but not injured. Hunter said they included a pair of college-aged men and a vehicle with four women in it.
Pittsburgh police are handling the investigation, despite the incident occurring on a state road.
It likely will take weeks before authorities determine what caused the crash, said Cruz, the police spokeswoman. She said speed may have been a factor.
“We all know it takes a pretty significant amount of speed and force to flip over a bridge deck,” Pittsburgh police Chief Jason Lando said Wednesday.
Previous crashes
PennDOT has reported 54 crashes — but no fatalities — on or near the Route 65 off-ramp headed toward Fort Duquesne Bridge in the past 20 years, Cowan said.
Cowan said that section of the Route 65 ramp “is not a high-crash location.”
“But the traffic volumes are moderately high,” he added. “There is the potential for weaving as drivers get onto the bridge.”
PennDOT has not conducted any traffic studies in that area, Cowan said.
Some nearby crashes have grabbed headlines.
In January 2022, one person was hospitalized after a multi-vehicle crash on the bridge’s lower deck.
In 2019, a Zelienople man — Joshua E. Wine, 30 — was killed after losing control of his car and crashing on a different ramp to the Fort Duquesne Bridge.
