Our Lady of the Highways Watches Over Stretch of Interstate Where Massive Pileup Occurred

As speeding vehicles dash across Cecil County on I-95, Our Lady of the Highways watches peacefully over the hectic scene from a tranquil hillside in Childs, MD.  The guardian of travelers, a 14-foot-high white marble statue of the Virgin Mary, was placed there by Oblates after a massive pileup took three lives on a foggy October morning in 1968.

Hearing crash after crash, novices, seminarians, brothers, and priests from the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, who were starting their morning routine, rushed toward the Interstate. (Novices had entered the religious order, but were on probation before taking vows.) The first outside aid to reach victims, they tended to the injured and dying while waiting for emergency crews to make their way through the darkness and fog.

Moved by the sad tragedy that took place on that unforgettable autumn day, the Oblates erected the shrine on the grounds of the novitiate in 1973.  In addition to serving as a memorial for the three victims, the patron of travelers reminds people to drive safely and say a prayer before heading out on a trip.

Here is the story of that dreadful day.  Thick fog made travel hazardous in the pre-dawn hours of October 2, 1968.  As drivers on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway made their way carefully across the top of the Chesapeake, they suddenly encountered treacherous conditions about a mile west of the Elkton exit.  A swath of almost impenetrable, unmoving mist hugged the ground, creating havoc as it cut visibility to 10 to 12 feet, according to Wilmington newspapers.  Vehicles rushing into this dangerous spot suddenly started braking, but one car hit the bridge abutment.  That triggered a chain reaction as 20 vehicles quickly piled up in the northbound lane about where it crosses Blue Ball Road.  Several of the crumpled cars were smashed between tractor-trailers.

Cecil County Fire Headquarters received an urgent call from the Oblates, and the alarm went out on the public safety radio system at 6:20 a.m.  While they waited for fire and rescue services, seminarians and priests comforted the injured and dying. 

The first ambulance crew to arrive on the scene–Singerly Fire Company’s Jack Fears and Hampton Scott–discovered a horrible scene of twisted metal and shattered glass. In the choking fog, they quickly assessed the carnage and asked dispatch for a general alarm, summoning every available Cecil County ambulance and nearby Delaware units.  Fourteen tractor-trailers and at least six cars were strewn across lanes of the toll road, while police found the fog so thick that they had to probe for victims.  With visibility near zero and conditions treacherous, four rescue units and four engines also sped to the wreckage to extricate trapped victims, support EMS crews, and suppress any fire.

When word of the accident was flashed to Union Hospital, Rusty Brandon, the night supervisor, activated the hospital’s disaster plan.  Since this was the era before advanced life support, shock trauma centers, and helicopters, all the injured were routed through the local emergency room. As there wasn’t a physician on duty in the emergency department overnight, she called doctors, and soon extra practitioners and nurses rushed to the medical facility to help the night shift cope with the disaster.  Before the last injured person entered the door at 8:30 a.m., the medical staff treated eight patients.

Three people died on that stretch of the turnpike before the sun came up at 7:03 a.m. that dark Cecil County morning.  It was later reported that discharge from a nearby paper mill contributed to the sudden, sharp drop in visibility.  As for Cecil County Emergency Services, they were ready when the call about an accident on the turnpike required a massive deployment of manpower and equipment from across the county and nearby areas.  The central dispatch system for police, fire, and EMS was just six years old, but it proved vital in coordinating the joint response to such a serious accident.

The Oblates erected the memorial, Our Lady of the Highways, in 1973.  Drivers who happen to glance over toward the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales may wonder about the “stone lady,” as truckers call her.  She is the patron of travelers, the lady of the highway, watching over motorists on I-95.

Christiana and Singerly Fire Company ambulances at the Union Hospital Emergency (Singerly Fire Company Museum)

Front page of Evening Journal, October 3, 1968.

Click here for a related piece on a song about “Our Lady of the Highways/”

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