State Police said charges are pending against a 20-year-old Mathews County woman in a fatal accident Saturday morning on the Coleman Bridge that diverted traffic for more than four hours.
A 2019 GMC Sierra pickup had a mechanical issue as it towed a trailer south on Route 17 just before 8 a.m., according to a news release Monday from State Police spokesman Matthew Demlein.
The driver pulled over to the right shoulder, and passenger Jose O. Salinas Estrada, 44, of Gloucester County, got out to address the problem.
That’s when police said the Mathews woman — at the wheel of a 2018 Kia Forte sedan — veered to the right, striking the trailer and the truck.
Salinas Estrada was “pinned in between the vehicle and the trailer” and died at the scene, Demlein wrote.
The GMC’s driver, a 39-year-old Gloucester woman, was not injured, while the Kia’s driver suffered minor injuries. The Daily Press and Virginian-Pilot are not naming the Kia’s 20-year-old driver as no charges haveyet been filed.
The Coleman Bridge crosses the York River between Gloucester and York counties, connecting the middle and lower peninsulas. The bridge has two travel lanes plus a narrow one-lane shoulder in each direction.
“The final crash report said both the trailer and vehicle were on the shoulder,” Demlein said in an email.
The wreck caused traffic issues in the area, according to a social media post Saturday morning from the Gloucester Sheriff’s Office. Traffic trying to get from Gloucester to York was re-routed through West Point and Interstate 64 until early Saturday afternoon.
The bridge was reopened in the early afternoon.
Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, [email protected]
