Eight people were killed in D.C.-area traffic accidents Friday and Saturday, in an unusually deadly two days on the region’s roadways.
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Three people died in a crash on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway in Beltsville. Four people were killed after their cars crashed and caught on fire — two in a Silver Spring accident and two others in a Southeast D.C. crash. And a pedestrian was fatally struck by a car in Fort Washington.
In two crashes, the vehicles swerved off the road and struck trees; in another, the car hit a utility pole.
Police said the circumstances of all four accidents were still under investigation.
The string of fatal crashes started Friday, when a Mercedes Benz burst into flames after striking a utility pole on the 1300 block of Southern Avenue SE in the District. Two juveniles were trapped inside and killed, D.C. police said.
Witnesses told WUSA-9 that the car appeared to have been racing another vehicle.
“They were speeding, two cars and the other car just left those people there. It was so sad,” a nursing assistant at the nearby United Medical Center told the television station.
Then, on Saturday, two people were killed in another fiery crash in Silver Spring.
Montgomery County police said the crash happened in the Cloverly area at about 12:20 a.m., when a Subaru driving north on the 15700 block of Holly Grove Road left the roadway, turned and hit a tree. The vehicle was engulfed in flames when emergency crews arrived, police said.
The driver and front-seat passenger were found dead inside the vehicle.
At about the same time, 26-year-old Ashley Duckett died when she was hit by a Chevrolet Impala on Route 210 near Kerby Hill Road, said Cpl. Erica Johnson, a Prince George’s County police spokeswoman.
Duckett, of Fort Washington, was walking along the road at the time of the crash, Johnson said. The car’s driver, a 23-year-old man from Temple Hills, remained at the scene.
The most deadly crash occurred at about 2:15 a.m Saturday, when an SUV driving south on the BW Parkway near Powder Mill Road left the roadway and struck a large tree, according to Prince George’s fire and emergency services.
The violent crash caused several people to be ejected from the vehicle; others were trapped in the wreckage.
The fire department said an adult woman and a teenage girl were pronounced dead at the scene. A 3-month-old baby was hospitalized, but died, fire officials said.
Four others — an adult man and three young children — were hospitalized in critical condition.
The people in the car are believed to be related, said Sgt. David Schlosser, spokesman for U.S. Park Police.
The Prince George’s fire department called the crash scene “horrific” and said in a statement that the accident “was troubling for even the most seasoned first responders.”
The southbound lanes of the parkway were closed for about five hours after the crash.
Victims’ names had not been released by early Saturday evening because their families were still being notified.
