Posted on Jan 22, 2014

A two-car accident in southern Calvert County left two people dead on January 2. An elderly man and woman from Solomons died when their car collided with a tanker truck in a construction zone. Details of the fatal Maryland truck accident are as follows:

Herbert Spear Sawyer, 86, was behind the wheel of a 2005 Toyota Camry traveling northbound along Route 4 (South Solomons Island Road) around 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 2. Eugenie Rieder Sawyer, 97, was his front-seat passenger. Both died in the crash.

At the time of the accident, the Maryland State Highway Administration was in the middle of fixing a traffic light at the intersection of Route 4 and Patuxent Point Parkway. According to police reports, the left turning lane and one through lane were open for traffic; maintenance vehicles and warning cones blocked off a second through lane.

Sawyer apparently stopped at the red light in the open through lane, intending to turn left onto Patuxent Point Parkway. When the signal for through traffic turned green, he started to turn left from the through lane, allegedly without yielding to oncoming traffic. The turn signal was still red.

A 1995 International tanker truck, headed southbound on Route 4, crashed into the Toyota in the middle of the intersection. The truck’s driver, 41-year-old Kelly Ronnell Silver, attempted to veer right but could not avoid the collision. The impact of the crash destroyed the Toyota and caused significant damage to the front end of the tanker truck.

Emergency personnel arrived on the scene and extricated the two occupants from the Toyota. Eugenie Sawyer was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Herbert Sawyer was taken to Calvert Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Silver refused medical treatment.

We express our deepest sympathies to the family of Herbert and Eugenie Sawyer in their time of grief.

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