Ice From Mass Turnpike Overpass Shatters Car's Windshield
Updated Thursday 9:30 a.m.
WESTON (CBS) -- As the evening commute was looking to be a sloppy one on Tuesday, Dr. Jennifer Michaud Finch thought she would get a jump on the drive home by getting out early.
A few minutes into her hour long commute she was driving on 95 North going under the Mass Turnpike when she saw a plow above clearing the overpass and she says a huge chunk of ice came crashing into her car hitting her windshield.
WBZ-TV's Jonathan Elias reports.
"I was shocked. You expect rain and snow to fall from the sky, but not a chuck of ice rock hitting your windshield," Dr. Finch said.
Her windshield was shattered, and so were her nerves. She called 911 and her car had to be towed.
She documented the damage right after the crash with her iPhone, describing shards of glass that were sent all over the inside of the passenger compartment of her car. She wasn't injured but she feels lucky that she wasn't.
Since then she and her insurance company have called the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, specifically the Highway Department, to find out what they should do next.
"This is an unsafe situation that could happen during any snowstorm at any time to anyone, and this shouldn't be the practice."
"It has happened in the past, it's very rare," state highway commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky told WBZ News Radio 1030 Thursday.
"It's something that we strictly remind our plow operators, our contractors and our employees about the need to slow it down a little bit on bridges and avoid pushing snow over the railings onto vehicles below."
"In this incident we are going to reach out to the driver and get as many details as we can… and try to track down that plow operator."
Paiewonsky said the plow operator "will be held accountable."
