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Accident Reconstruction Research: Guardrails

Chicago Police Officer Killed in Tragic Accident
By Paul Anderson, ERRI Analyst

CHICAGO (EmergencyNet News) - A Chicago Police Department squad car plunged 25 feet Monday from an overpass onto the Dan Ryan Expressway on the city's South Side. A Chicago police officer was killed and a second officer was critically injured early Monday when their car swerved, vaulted a curb and crashed through the guardrail on 79th Street.

Police said the car had swerved to avoid pedestrians during an emergency call shortly after midnight. Killed was 6th District Patrol Officer David C. Evans, 39, an 11-year veteran and a father of three. He had recently switched from days to the night shift to spend more time with his children.

The driver of the car, Patrol Officer Estella Johnson, 33, was in critical condition at Christ Hospital in suburban Oak Lawn with broken ribs and other injuries.

The 25-foot section of railing where the accident occurred, built of three- tiered beams of aluminum, appeared much newer than an adjacent stretch of rusty railing on the eastern part of the south side of the overpass. But the concrete holding the guardrail appeared crumbled in places, and the force of the car ripped the support poles from their bases. Current construction practice uses steel for such guardrails, or concrete barriers.

Experts say that they doubted that having a concrete barrier would have made a difference. A spokesman for the city Transportation Department said, "That guardrail can only hold against so much. We had no indication there was a problem before the accident occurred."

Police said the two officers, who were paired for the first time on Sunday night, were eastbound on 79th with their lights and siren activated. They were responding to a call for help from paramedics in the 7900 block of South Vernon. The police car swerved to avoid striking a pedestrian in the road, then swerved again to avoid striking other pedestrians at a bus stop. The car crashed through the guardrail and cyclone fence, flipped upside down and landed in the northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Accident investigators said that the car had been traveling at a high rate of speed. But because the car hit a concrete curb and guardrail, it will be difficult to determine its speed, according to police.