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Woman dies in 3-vehicle collision along SR 52

The Florida Highway Patrol doesn't know why the victim's minivan ran into the path of a semitrailer but says that speed was not a factor.

By JAMAL THALJI
Published October 20, 2005

LAND O'LAKES - The sounds of metal and sirens no longer surprise residents of Pasco Trails. Ray David was working in his yard when he heard a wrenching and familiar sound.

It came from a mile away on nearby State Road 52, where authorities say an eastbound minivan crossed the center line and drove right into the path of a westbound semitrailer truck.

The collision killed the minivan's driver, a 59-year-old Hudson woman, and shut down SR 52 for five hours Wednesday.

"It sounded like the flap door coming down on a dump truck," David said, "magnified 10 times."

The flatbed truck tried to evade the minivan, steering right, but authorities say the minivan crossed all the way over into the west lane. The two met at the north shoulder's edge, the minivan's front-end crashing into the truck's left side.

The driver of the white 2000 Dodge Caravan, Wacelia Carroll of 12615 College Hill Drive, died at the scene, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

"The other motorists, when they ran to her aid," said patrol Trooper Larry Coggins Jr., "she had already passed away."

The accident occurred at 10:10 a.m. just east of Pasco Trails, leaving SR 52 closed between U.S. 41 and Ehren Cutoff until 3 p.m. and traffic all around backed up for miles.

The patrol doesn't know why the Caravan crossed into the west lane and into the path of the white 1998 Freightliner flatbed semitrailer, but Coggins said speed was not a factor.

The semitrailer started to spin counterclockwise and its cab overturned. The 59-year-old driver, John Mullis of St. Augustine was taken to Spring Hill Regional Hospital with minor injuries.

After the initial collision, the Caravan spun around, and its front-end hit the left side of a third vehicle behind it in the eastbound lane: a 1992 Oldsmobile Silhouette minivan. That driver, Douglas Burdette, 39, of 10132 Briar Circle in Hudson was uninjured.

All three drivers were wearing seat belts.

David walked to the scene to document the accident for the equestrian community's newsletter, Hoof Beats. He found about a 100-yard stretch of SR 52 strewn with wreckage.

On the west side, the flatbed skidded to a stop on the north shoulder, its tires shredded, the cab lying on the driver's side, its cargo of aluminum ramps for Pasco County school portables strewn about the road.

On the east side, the Caravan rested on the south shoulder, facing west, its front-end smashed into the cabin.

The Silhouette crashed through a barbed-wire fence on the south shoulder.

David said residents expect about four to five bad wrecks a year on the two-lane highway. It'll get worse, he said, when the 8,700-home Connerton development takes root here along SR 52.

"I hate to say it," David said. "But it's completely expected."

[Last modified October 20, 2005, 01:19:18]