Chesterton Tribune

 

 

ISP: Ejected from car at I-65 rest area, killed

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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.

 

 

Posted 10/13/2016

 
 
 
 

 

 

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