A man attending to occupants of a vehicle involved in a crash in the middle of Interstate 81 in Schuylkill County on Monday morning was seriously injured when he was struck by an oncoming vehicle.
According to information from State Police-Frackville, the incident happened on I-81 near Mile Marker 131 in Mahanoy Township. Police say 48-year-old Carson Gaston, of Lehighton, was standing in the middle of both southbound lanes of the highway checking on the occupants of a vehicle that had just been involved in a crash with his vehicle.
While Gaston was helping the occupants of that vehicle, a Ford F-150 driven by Thomas Buist, 62, of Gananoque, Ontario, Canada, and a Kia Spectra driven by 28-year-old Jonothan Parker, of East Stroudsburg, came upon the scene traveling south on I-81.
Buist slowed down to avoid the debris in the road caused by the previous crash. Parker, police say, did not. Parker’s vehicle hit Gaston. Parker’s vehicle then rear-ended Buist’s truck. Both of those vehicles stopped on the shoulder of the highway.Â
Gaston was laying in the grass median of I-81 when police arrived on the scene. He and Parker suffered serious injuries and were transported from the scene by ambulance units from Schuylkill County.
Buist was uninjured during the incident.
Prior to this incident, Gaston was involved in a crash shortly after 6 a.m. Police say Gaston was traveling south in a 1994 Freightliner when a 2000 Ford F-150XLT driven by Jared Longenecker, 32, of Palmyra, failed to slow down for Gaston, who was traveling at a slower rate of speed.
Longenecker’s vehicle rear-ended Gaston’s and came to rest in the middle of the southbound lanes of the highway. Gaston drove his vehicle to the shoulder of the road. No one, including a passenger in Longenecker’s vehicle, reported injuries as a result of this crash.
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