GREENFIELD – On Sunday, August 27, at 11:59 p.m. emergency crews responded to the scene of a serious multi-vehicle crash in the eastbound lanes of I-70 near the 97-mile marker.
A semi-tractor trailer that was involved in the crash caught fire closing both eastbound and westbound traffic lanes. When first responders arrived they located a man lying in the roadway, he was pronounced deceased at the scene. The drivers of the other vehicles involved were not injured.
Indiana State Police Crash Reconstructionists Lieutenant Tyler Utterback and Trooper Kari Woodard responded to the scene to do the investigation. Preliminary information has led investigators to believe a pick-up truck pulling a car trailer had broken down in the right lane of I-70, there are no emergency shoulders in this area due to construction. A motorcyclist struck the back of the car trailer and was ejected into the left lane. Another eastbound car then struck the motorcycle and the motorcyclist. Shortly after the second impact, a semi-tractor trailer struck the motorcycle in the roadway causing the motorcycle and eventually the semi-trailer to catch on fire. The driver of the semi was able to get out of the truck prior to the fire.
The motorcyclist was identified as 47-year-old Mark Webster of Richmond Indiana. The eastbound lanes of I-70 were closed for approximately seven hours while the crash was investigated and the wreckage was removed. The westbound lanes had to be closed while the semi was engulfed due to the fire’s proximity to the westbound traffic. The westbound lanes were reopened at 1:55 a.m.
This investigation is ongoing and there is no further information to release.
