A head-on crash in the early morning darkness yesterday on the George Washington Memorial Parkway killed one man, but four other people were rescued by a group of off-duty police officers and civilians moments before one of the vehicles exploded in flames.
The 5:30 a.m. crash created massive backups on the western side of the Capital Beltway during the morning rush hour, with no cars allowed to enter the parkway from the Beltway for five hours. Alternate routes, including Interstate 66, the Dulles Toll Road and Route 123, became jammed as motorists were slowly rerouted around the crash scene.
The closure was necessary so that firefighters and police could treat the injured, quell the ensuing car fire and investigate the collision, said Sgt. Scott Fear of the U.S. Park Police. The ramp from the northbound lanes of the parkway to the Beltway also was closed, but all lanes were reopened by about 10:30 a.m., he said.
The dead man's name and age were not released yesterday, pending notification of family members. Fear said that he was one of three people riding in a northbound Subaru Legacy and that he was in the front passenger seat.
No charges were filed yesterday while investigators sorted out the cause of the accident. None of the other injuries were considered life-threatening.
Near the exit for the Beltway, Fear said, the Legacy crossed the median and entered the lanes where cars from the Beltway merge into the southbound parkway. The Legacy slammed into a Plymouth sedan driven by a man with a female passenger, Fear said.
Cars behind the Plymouth screeched to a halt. Among the drivers were two off-duty Park Police officers, a retired Montgomery County police officer, a retired D.C. police officer, a military pilot and two civilians.
Stephen Mann, 55, an instructor with the D.C. police who retired after 25 years, said the impact pushed the engines of both cars into the passenger compartments. He ran first to the Plymouth, where the woman was screaming in pain. He said the driver, having just withstood the powerful collision, remained calm and helped comfort the woman while the improvised rescue team pried open her door and carried her away from the car.
David Crumpler, 52, a 30-year Montgomery police veteran who retired last year, parked his Ford F-250 pickup truck behind the crashed cars to prevent motorists from trying to drive through the scene. He then saw the Plymouth burst into flames.
Crumpler said he went to the Legacy, where he met Mann. "We got the rear side passenger out," Crumpler said, though the man was badly hurt. The driver was trapped.
Mann moved around to the front-seat passenger, who stopped breathing seconds later.
The group of officers and civilians moved back to the driver, pried open his door and freed him, Mann said. But then the fire at the Plymouth grew larger. The group headed to the woman they had pulled from the Plymouth and gently moved her a safe distance away.
"You hate to move somebody in that situation because you don't know their injuries," Mann said. "But that vehicle is now a fireball." He estimated the cars were 15 feet apart.
Park Police would not name the two off-duty officers involved in the rescue, and the other participants could not be identified yesterday.
But both Mann and Crumpler said the group worked silently. "It was pretty amazing," Crumpler said. "People's lives are in danger, there's no time to talk about who's going to do what. Guys are just hitting doors and pulling people out of cars."
Mann agreed. "No one spoke a word. Everyone just reacted," he said. "It reminded me of a homeland security drill, but real. The citizens helped out in there. This was an amazing thing."
Fear said that when he saw the wreckage, "You wouldn't think anybody was alive." He said the right front of the Legacy bore the brunt of the impact.
