Wednesday, July 07, 1999
Highway gets too-early test
BY MICHAEL D. CLARK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Deputy Jim Mueller attaches a safety cable as he investigates the crash of sport utility vehicle on the unfinished Butler County Regional Highway.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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LIBERTY TOWNSHIP — A 55-year-old Dayton, Ohio, woman couldn't wait for the new Butler County Regional Highway to be completed — and took a ride Tuesday that could have killed her.
If not for a small pile of gravel on the unfinished highway — which launched the woman's sports utility vehicle (SUV) over a 15-foot gap — Gracie Weisbrod would have smashed headlong into a concrete bridge pillar and plummeted 40 feet, police said.
Instead her SUV, estimated by Butler County sheriff's deputies to be traveling more than 80 mph, went airborne and landed on the concrete beams of an unfinished highway bridge over Cincinnati-Dayton Road in Liberty Township.
That Ms. Weisbrod was un injured is amazing, said those at the scene.
That she barreled her way through construction barriers, sped westbound on an uncompleted highway and tried to drive across the bare skeleton of an unfinished highway bridge easily visible in daylight was “unbelievable,” said Terry Housh, a blacktop operator working on the highway.
Police said Ms. Weisbrod was legally drunk at about 1:30 p.m. when she ignored warnings from construction crews at the Interstate 75 entrance to the new regional highway.
Sheriff's spokesman Brad Kraemer said Ms. Weisbrod's blood alcohol was tested at 0.19 (0.10 is the legal limit).
She remains in custody, charged with DUI. Other charges are likely, Mr. Kraemer said.
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