A man was killed on
Wednesday after being ejected from a car in a crash at an I-65 rest area in
Jasper County, the Indiana State Police said.
The victim was
identified as Nicholas James Vega, 26, of Medaryville, Ind.
According to
police, Vega was a passenger in a 2005 Honda Accord being driven by Zachary
Smith Vetter, 25, of Crown Point. At 9:17 p.m. Vetter was southbound on I-65
when he exited the rest area 1.5 miles north of the Demotte/Roselawn
interchange “at a high rate of speed” and struck a large highway sign at the
fork in the deceleration lane where passenger vehicle traffic separates from
semi truck traffic, police said.
Vetter’s Accord
rolled down an embankment into a muddy, reed-filled ditch, then rolled out
of the embankment and came to rest in the travel lane of the
passenger-vehicle side of the rest area, police said.
At some point
VegaÑwho police said was not wearing a seatbeltÑwas ejected from the Honda
and came to rest beneath a semi truck, near the tandem tires. He was
pronounced dead at the scene of massive blunt force trauma.
The driver of that
semi was asleep at the time in his sleeper, police said. Falling on top of
his trailer were the 12-foot poles to which the highway sign struck by
Vetter had been fixed.
Vetter, for his
part, was cut out of his seat belt by a Jasper County Sheriff’s Police
officer and transported by ambulance to Riverside Medical Center in
Kankakee, Ill., with non-life threatening injuries, police said.
A German shepherd
riding in the Accord with Vega and Vetter was not injured and kept watch
over the deceased until Jasper County Animal Control arrived on scene to
retrieve him, police noted.