Jesse Bash had stopped his black four-wheel drive pickup truck on Route 31 in Donegal Township Monday to make a left turn into a furniture outlet store where he works when the driver of a tri-axle truck behind him “began really laying on his air horn.”
“I was really starting to get mad because I had to wait for traffic to pass me the other way before I could turn across traffic and he was really laying on that horn, but maybe he was trying to warn me to get out of the way because he saw the third truck coming behind him … I really don’t know,” Bash said.
Bash, 40, of Acme, is thankful he was not the second or third driver in a chain vehicle collision that followed along the busy road about 10:20 a.m.
“I don’t know what would have happened to me if I was stopped somewhere else in line,” Bash said.
Bash said the next thing he remembers after “the air horn blaring” was the sound of a big collision in the westbound lanes near the Donegal interchange of the turnpike.
The driver of a third tri-axle truck that Bash could not see, slammed into the dump truck that was stopped immediately behind him forcing the second truck driver to crash into the rear of Bash’s pickup. Bash has not received his insurance adjuster’s decision, but he believes his truck “is a total loss.”
Bash is employed by Rustic Lodge Furniture that has two stores along the stretch.
“I’m just thankful I’m OK. The driver behind me had to go to a local hospital for treatment and they had to extricate the third truck driver out of his truck and airlifted him to Presby (UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh) I was told,” Bash said.
“I hope the other two drivers fully recover. Even though what happened to my truck, I was pretty lucky,” he said.
The crash closed the highway for more than four hours as the Pennsylvania State Police accident reconstruction team probed the crash scene.
Mutual Aid Ambulance paramedics treated both other injured drivers at the scene.
The road is a main traffic artery to Hidden Valley and Seven Springs ski resorts in Somerset County.
State police in Greensburg are investigating the crash, but an accident report was not available.
