Seven bikers were killed on a rural highway when a pickup towing a flatbed trailer plowed into a group of 10 motorcyclists from a club for Marine Corps veterans as they rode to a charity event in New Hampshire on Friday night.
Three others were hospitalized and the dead victims were believed to include include five Marine veterans and two others from the Jarheads Motorcycle Club. The accident happened on a two-lane highway near Randolph, New Hampshire, when the bikers were en route to the American Legion #82 in Gorham, New Hampshire.
The names of the dead were not being released until the victims’ families were notified. Authorities identified the driver of the 2016 Dodge 2500 pickup as Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, who worked for Westfield Transport, based in Springfield, Massachusetts. He survived the accident and was not immediately charged with any offense.
A GoFundMe was set up for the victims of the crash and their families. The page stated: “Our pack was struck by an oncoming vehicle and we lost 5 patch holders and 2 supporters, and many others are injured. Our club and the families are going to need help and we cannot do it alone.”
Witnesses saw bodies, motorcycles, and debris strewn across the highway. The pickup truck came to rest in a roadside ditch with flames spewing from under the hood.
“I held his hand and I tried again and I’m, like, ‘Squeeze my hand. Stay with me. You’re a strong guy. You’ve got this,'” Travis Hood, who arrived at the site ahead of emergency personnel, said. “Towards the end, when the ambulance got there, I could feel him losing strength.”
“There was debris everywhere,” said Miranda Thompson, 21, who arrived soon after the accident. “There was debris everywhere.” She saw a truck in flames on the side of the highway and six motorcycles. “People were in the grass. There were people putting tourniquets on people, trying to make sure they didn’t move.”
Cat Wilson, who organizes a motorcycle charity event in Massachusetts and is a friend of some of the crash victims, said: “When something like this happens, we all feel it. There is no tighter community than our biker community.”
The road reopened Saturday, and skid marks were still visible on the road, which has mountains and fields as a backdrop. A patch of burned grass remained.
Bill Brown, 73, a military veteran and motorcyclist, arrived to plant flags, calling the victims “brothers in arms” and vowing to keep riding. Members of the motorcycle community were already organizing help for the victims’ families, Wilson said, and a memorial event in nearby Berlin was being planned for Saturday evening.
Jerry Hamanne, co-owner of a nearby inn that was hosting one of the bikers in the group, said he and a doctor also staying there went to the scene to help. “It was so devastating to see the bodies on the road,’ Hamanne said. ‘My God, I don’t want to see something like this again.” The crash happened about 500 feet from lodging where most of the motorcyclists were staying,” he added.
Update: Multiple fatalities have been reported as a result of a crash involving motorcycles and a pickup truck on Route 2 in Randolph: https://t.co/jRXu5YaPKK
?: u local/Miranda Thompson pic.twitter.com/2O8VTNWtQu
— WMUR TV (@WMUR9) June 22, 2019
The National Transportation Safety Board said it has dispatched a team to help local officials with the safety investigation.
New Hampshire officials, including Gov. Chris Sununu, briefed the public on the investigation on Saturday. New Hampshire State Police Col. Chris Wagner said the police department’s most senior investigators had not seen a worse tragedy.
One of the injured was airlifted to Maine Medical hospital the other two taken to Androscoggin Valley Hospital.
