Saturday, March 13, 1999
Clearcreek Twp. crash recalls year-ago accident
Teen dies after car broadsided by truck
BY SHEILA McLAUGHLIN and RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
CLEARCREEK TOWNSHIP— A Centerville High School student was killed Friday after the car she was riding in ran a red light and was broadsided by a Rumpke garbage truck at Ohio 48 and 122.
The fatal crash occurred at an intersection about 500 yards from the scene of a crash that claimed the lives of two Warren County Career Center students last year.
State troopers said passenger Kristen Knapp, 18, died from injuries suffered after she was ejected from the Chevrolet Cavalier traveling south on Ohio 48 shortly after 2 p.m.
The garbage truck was traveling east on Ohio 122 when the Cavalier ran the traffic light, Trooper Tim Patton said.
Alcohol was not a factor, police said. It was unclear whether speed played a role. The impact of the crash tore off the passenger door and pushed the Cavalier into a third vehicle stopped at the traffic light on northbound Ohio 48, authorities said.
Lindsay Kiefaber, 18, also of Centerville and the driver of the Cavalier, was expected to be released Friday from Kettering Memorial Hospital near Dayton, Ohio.
Catharine Pittman, 27, of Mason and her two young children were in the third vehicle. They were taken to Bethesda Warren County in Lebanon as a precaution. They were later released. The driver of the garbage truck, Edwin Hallgath, 60, was not injured.
No charges have been filed in the accident, which remains under investigation, troopers said.
The accident happened nearly an hour before dismissal at Centerville High School.
“We're dealing with people who died. We're not concerned about where they should have been or what they may have done,” Assistant Superintendent Terry Riley said.
“We'll get to the bottom of that later on. We're kind of reeling now ourselves.”
Mr. Riley did not know what grades the teens were in.
Despite the deaths of three teen- agers in the last 14 months, the stretch of Ohio 48 north of Lebanon is not a dangerous road, Warren County Engineer Neil Tunison said.
The Ohio Department of Transportation rebuilt the intersection at Ohio 122 and 48 five or six years ago to make it safer, adding turn lanes and traffic signals, he said.
There has been one other fatality since 1995 on the stretch of Ohio 48 from the Lebanon city limits north to Ohio 73, Ohio Department of Public Safety records show.
Police said excessive speed was the cause of last year's double fatality. The driver, Christopher Heitfield, pleaded no contest in October to two counts of vehicular homicide.
For students and staff at the Career Center, the crumpled cars, ambulances and police cars were a flashback to Jan. 7, 1998.
Then, the smashed cab, engine and twisted metal pieces of Mr. Heitfield's truck were strewn across the school's front lawn.
Jennifer N. Zimmer and Victoria McCoy, both 17, died in that crash.
That tragic scene “is the first thing that enters your mind whenever anything happens out there,” said Roger Pack, assistant superintendent at the Career Center.
After the deaths, school administrators requested school-zone signs slowing the speed to 20 mph during restricted times, when students are arriving at and leaving the Career Center.
The signs were erected in October, and in February, Clearcreek Township police increased patrols on the street.
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