Six die in alleged distracted driving accident

State police officers in Kentucky are investigating  whether distracted driving played a part in the deaths of six people after an SUV was hit by a tractor-trailer on a highway near Elizabethtown.

According to The Associated Press, six members of an extended family from Marion, Wisconsin, were traveling along Interstate 65 when their vehicle was struck by a truck, causing the SUV to hit the car in front before bursting into flames. Accident attorneys and local law enforcement officers involved in the investigation feel that the late morning crash on March 2 was also the trigger for a multi-vehicle pile-up on the opposite side of the highway, with police officers believing that the truck driver, Ibramhim Fetic, may have been distracted at the time of the accident.

"The truck driver is telling us that he saw the vehicle that was in front of him and he hit the brakes and he didn't hit them in time," Master Trooper Norman Chaffins said to the news source. "There was a reason for that and we're trying to figure out what the reason was."

Initial questioning of the driver focused on the weather conditions, but despite a series of snow flurries, this was not considered to be a factor. Fetic is employed by Highway Star Inc., a nationwide trucking firm that had, according to the AP, accumulated 17 traffic violations in two years, with officials from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration advising that these included speeding, improper lane change and following too close to another vehicle. 

The six people fatally injured in the crash were on their way back home from a trip to Orlando, Florida, with the driver and five of his passengers all reportedly killed when the vehicle burst into flames. Emergency services reported that  62-year-old James Gollnow, his wife Barbara and two of their foster children, along with a 92-year-old family friend and an 18-year-old girl all lost their lives in the crash, while two other foster children, Hope Hoth and Aidan Ejnik, were taken to local hospitals.

Accident attorneys have not confirmed whether or not Fetic will be charged, but police officers are blaming a four-vehicle collision 15 minutes later in the southbound lanes of the interstate on the original accident. According to police reports, three vehicles and one tractor-trailer were involved with rubbernecking considered to be the cause.

"That's what we're suspecting, that people were looking at the crash that happened on the other side and became distracted and caused a chain-reaction crash," said Chaffins.

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