NAPLES — A Ford Mustang jumped a U.S. 41 median and flew head-on into an oncoming sport utility vehicle Wednesday morning, killing one and leaving another with serious injuries in Naples.
Linda Pond Daneau, 57, of Bonita Springs, died on impact when the Mustang came crashing into the front-end and windshield of her 2008 Honda Pilot, Naples fire Chief Steve McInerny said. She was driving south on U.S. 41, about a mile south of Pine Ridge Road around 10 a.m.
The violent crash shut down U.S. 41 between Old Trail and Park Shore drives, with southbound traffic diverted for four hours and northbound traffic detoured for a couple hours.
In an intricate rescue, about 20 firefighters and emergency responders worked for an hour to extricate the surviving victim, James Hogan, 72, of Bonita Springs, who was trapped under the dashboard of his 2011 Mustang.
“He was completely entangled within the wreckage, basically from the waist down,” McInerny said.
Hogan was flown to Lee Memorial Hospital with traumatic injuries. He was listed in serious condition Wednesday evening. A third driver was involved but not injured.
Hogan’s vehicle came to rest with its back tires still in the median and Daneau’s SUV on its side in the outer lane.
Dozens of gawkers piled out from nearby office buildings, restaurants and car dealerships, watching as firefighters crowded around the Mustang. Tarps were used to shield firefighters extricating Hogan.
A few dozen responders from Naples police and fire, North Naples fire, Collier County EMS and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office assisted at the scene.
Naples police continue to investigate the cause of the crash. McInerny said it’s possible Hogan suffered an emergency medical condition. Hogan and Daneau were both wearing seat belts, he said.
The crash ripped seatbelts from the floorboards and crushed Hogan under the dashboard of his Mustang, McInerny said. Firefighters needed three sets of hydraulic rescue tools to extricate Hogan, officials said.
“Most extrications are 15, 20, 30 minutes,” McInerny said. “It’s very rare to go beyond that, especially when you have seat belts and airbags in play.”
UPDATED AT 5:45 P.M.:
A Ford Mustang jumped a median and flew head-on into an oncoming SUV Wednesday morning, killing one and leaving another with serious injuries on U.S. 41 in Naples.
About 20 firefighters and emergency responders worked for an hour to extricate the surviving victim, 72-year-old James Hogan, of Bonita Springs, who was entangled under the dashboard of his 2011 Mustang. Linda Pond Daneau, 57, of Bonita Springs, died on impact when the Mustang came crashing into the front-end and windshield of her 2008 Honda Pilot as she drove southbound on U.S. 41, about a mile south of Pine Ridge Road, Naples fire Chief Steve McInerny said.
Hogan was flown to Lee Memorial Hospital with traumatic injuries. He was listed in serious condition as of Wednesday evening. A third driver was involved but not injured.
The violent crash shut down U.S. 41 between Old Trail and Park Shore drives, with southbound traffic diverted for four hours and northbound traffic detoured for a couple hours. Hogan's vehicle came to rest with its back tires still in the median and Daneau's SUV on its side in the outer lane.
Dozens of gawkers piled out from nearby office buildings, restaurants and car dealerships, watching as firefighters crowded around the Mustang. Tarps were thrown over the SUV and used to shield firefighters extricating Hogan. A few dozen responders from Naples police and fire, North Naples fire, Collier County EMS and the Collier County Sheriff's Office populated the scene.
A cause of the crash remains under investigation, though McInerny said it's possible Hogan suffered an emergency medical condition. Hogan and Daneau were both wearing seat belts, McInerny said.
The crash ripped seat belts from the floorboards and crushed Hogan under the dashboard of his Mustang, McInerny said. Firefighters needed three sets of hydraulic rescue tools to extricate Hogan in one of the area's most complex rescues in memory.
"Most extrications are 15, 20, 30 minutes," McInerny said. "It's very rare to go beyond that, especially when you have seat belts and airbags in play."
UPDATED AT 2:15 P.M.:
Both lanes of U.S. 41 near Pine Ridge Road have been reopened following a fatal crash this morning, Naples police said.
Details about the cause of the crash and the surviving victim's status haven't been released.
UPDATED AT 12 P.M.:
Northbound U.S. 41 near Pine Ridge Road has been reopened after a fatal crash at about 10 a.m. today.
Southbound traffic between Old Trail and Park Shore drives, located about one mile south of Pine Ridge Road, is expected to remain closed for the next several hours, Naples police said.
One person was killed and one person was hospitalized in the crash, police said. Firefighters worked for an hour to extricate the surviving victim, who appeared to be an adult. No further information was available.
EARLIER:
Because of a fatal car crash, traffic on U.S. 41 southbound at Old Trail Drive is closed and will be inaccessible for the next three hours at least.
Law enforcement officials are working a crash on U.S. 41 at Solana Road, about a mile south of Pine Ridge Road in Naples.
One person died and another was seriously injured, said Lt. John Barkley, a Naples police spokesman.
Currently, all of the southbound lanes of U.S. 41 are closed as far down as at least Park Shore Drive and all of northbound lanes are closed.
Northbound traffic on U.S. 41 in the same area is temporarily being diverted as well, the Naples Police Department reports.
About 20 firefighters were using chainsaws and other equipment on a red Ford Mustang to remove the injured person. Another vehicle was on its side with a large tarp over it.
The Mustang was halfway on the median, with a significant amount of debris scattered in the road.
A helicopter was idling nearby, on the northwest corner of Old Trail and U.S. 41, behind the McDonald's restaurant in Park Shore Plaza.
Check back to naplesnews.com for updates
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Comments » 70
valnaples writes:
MedEvac copter just landed...<sad>
lovingmylife writes:
My prayers are with the injured. Hopefully the "possible fatal" means that it was not a fatal accident.
Nina6520 writes:
The first line of the article says it was a fatal crash. Can't you read?
wallstreetgeek writes:
wow Nina, go back to bed!
beerbong writes:
Crashes like this do not happen when people are going the speed limit. Why will people not slow down? Some gripe about people dying from gun shots . But very little is done or said about this. RIP to the victim.
nativeonepointtwo writes:
"Posted March 20, 2013 at 10:19 a.m., updated March 20, 2013 at 11:03 a.m. "
If you notice, the individual you were rude to had his/her comment in before the updated version. This begs the question of whether or not you read well.
SunStar writes:
Well, we know the attitude of some Mustang drivers and Pitbull owners!
beerbong writes:
It's not just mustang owners. Try this, on a four lane road, with a 45 mph speed limit. drive in the right lane at 45 mph and see how you are treated. Better yet try in the right lane on I-75 to do 70 mph, You are putting yourself in real danger. Maybe they need two speeds on all cars and trucks a city speed of 45 mph and a highway seed of 70 mph. No more or no less. Something has to change.
roadhouse writes:
Heard it was actually 3 fatalities. Don't know if this is correct.
EnoughCorporateGreed (Inactive) writes:
You are correct, when people are doing 20-30 mph below the speed limit they risk causing an accident. Why can't these slowpokes go the speed limit?
stonnerjohnny writes:
Must be that time of the month Nina
wallstreetgeek writes:
not to mention this is the worst group of "snow bird" drivers I've seen in 20 years. Driving over medians, going north in the south bound lane of I-75, running red lights and total disregard for other drivers, all out of state plates! I've never been this nervous driving here.
Exposer writes:
They must be taking lessons from the locals. When in Rome, do as the Romans.
lovingmylife writes:
Nina, as is common NDN practice. The original story said "POSSIBLE FATAL ACCIDENT". Before you go insulting anyone for their reading skills, take a second to consider that NDN updates stories and headlines.
On another note. I pray for the victim's family. It appears that the person that died was in an SUV and not the Mustang. The mustang's driver was traveling at a high rate of speed. This is all according to NBC-2 news. So this speeding maniac killed somebody.
lovingmylife writes:
Thank you!
Court writes:
Gee. I was @ McDonald's at the time of the crash, and registered just so I could post about the accident. Made 2 posts and now they are gone (??) Hmmmm... Anyway, glad to read the updates here, because by the time I was outside the restaurant and could see the accident site, they had already put tarps around everything and were working to extricate the driver from the Mustang. I was unaware of the details, except those (apparently erroneous) given to me by another party. (Was told that 2 people had perished & the other vehicle was a minivan...must have been an SUV instead + one fatality). So sad, all around. :-(
Mohammed_Goldberg writes:
Unfortunately law enforcement in Southwest Florida prefers not to have any enforecment of driving laws, since their own personnel are unable to abide by them. Government employees get paid the same if they do their job or not. It is easier to just drive around or park and do paperwork.
lovingmylife writes:
When you register for an account, it normally takes a while for the comments to show up. They screen your first few comments to make sure you aren't a troll. Hang around long enough though and you will wonder how some people get past the NDN screeners.
SandnSurf writes:
I don't know how anyone could reach speeds fast enough to cause a fatal accident in this traffic. I agree with another poster here that this year is by far the worst I have seen in my 30 years here. If I don't need on the road, I stay off it.
My prayers to all involved in this accident.
cruiser420 writes:
Huh? Pitbull owners have 100% nothing to do with this fatal accident. Nor does the MODEL of car that people drive. Find something better to complain about.
lovingmylife writes:
It is pretty bad this year, I have had a few near misses myself and I was not speeding. Flying down the road in these traffic conditions, is simply not smart. As observed in this story. It is sad that someone will not be coming home today because someone else felt the need to get somewhere fast. Well that person didn't get to their destination and they caused a death. People please be careful on the roads.
snicolau writes:
I was in the Central Bank building on the fourth floor with a direct vantage point when I heard the crash. I cannot get what I saw out of my head. The people rushed out of their cars and ran towards the damaged cars. They looked inside the first car, surrounded by leaking oil, and looked away. Clearly, what was in there was too horrible for words. Someone held the hand of the victim in the mustang. The emergency folks arrived within four minutes, cleared the passersby, looked in the burgundy car and placed a tarp over it. Just awful. It took over an hour to free the mustang driver. What I saw was amazing. As the victim was taken away on the stretcher, EMTs held up tarps to protect her(?) dignity. There was an amazing response of people and Emergency people. I cannot for the life of me figure out how this accident happened; it was a head on collision in a lane that really wasn't part of an intersection. The sound of the impact was so loud and so quick. The death had to be instant. There was a third car that had the front right corner clipped. This was just awful. To think I had just turned into the parking lot from the same lane had me shaking for hours.
Niki_6 writes:
What needs to change is your mentality and your address. Perhaps communist China is more your speed, since you are in support of limiting everyone's freedom to suit 1 purpose. And if cars only had 2 speeds, then 45 mph is WAY over the speed limits in a residential community.
BillBrasky writes:
What do you base this on? Unlike our visitors the locals know where we're going and we're not hoped up on prescription medication and alcohol like so many of our seasonal visitors are.
For me this has been the season of stopping at green lights for no reason. Seasonal visitors please, green means go, red means stop.
marlock writes:
Once again one idiot loser ruins the day for all and kills an innocent person. Three words morons. OBEY THE LAW
Amazing how many people can read and don't know the rules of the road. SAD
naplesresident1 writes:
Here's a list of the types of bad drivers on our streets:
Visitors who are lost and distracted,
Elderly who have lost capacity,
Seasonal residents who are too important or too buzzed to heed the rules of the road,
Locals who drive extremely aggressively and too fast for conditions.
Not saying that all (or even most) elderly, visitors, seasonals, or locals drive in those ways, but that's the mix, and we really have to look out for them.
As a local, it's really not that hard to adjust my daily commute to allow for the extra traffic during season.
sportfan83 writes:
Ditto to your response. People are quick to make the dumb and rude comments without thinking about it.
LosBombero writes:
Over ONE HOUR for extrication ? That is a LONG time.
KR writes:
Maybe go to electric cars that only do 20 MPH. Or let's go back to riding horses! Beerbong you need to stop drinking the koolaid!
Court writes:
It did take a few minutes for my first post to show up, but another person posted after me, and then I posted an update and all 3 posts have gone missing. Anyway, I figured since my 2nd (missing) post had erroneous info in it the NDN staff decided to just dump those early posts. I see that the 72 year old driver of the Mustang was thought to have had a 'medical emergency'... which was my initial thought when the accident first happened. I guess we may learn the details eventually. I feel for the families of both parties involved. :-(
dolph66 writes:
I learned to drive here in my home, Naples in 1963. My job still requires me to drive 40-60 miles everyday in Naples. This year is the most congested I have ever seen. I learned from the husband of a witness that was following the care that caused this accident II won't go into details but car was driving in and out of lanes and jumped the median into the oncoming victem. Ebery destination I have ever driven to in Naples was there when I got there so Slow down and get off the phones
sally1860 writes:
Why do so many people need to make comments about speeding (or not) or snowbirds driving (deliberately, in your apparent opinion) over medians, etc., when no actual facts about how the accident occurred had been published? PERHAPS the driver of the Mustang had a medical problem that made him lose control. So PERHAPS he wasn't speeding or driving recklessly -- believe it or not, not every Mustang driver does so. PERHAPS somebody cut him off, and that hasn't been reported. PERHAPS you folks don't know what you're talking about -- most of the time.
A woman's life was ended suddenly and prematurely today. The driver, should he survive, will have to live with that, whether he's charged or not. Maybe it would be good to be thinking of them, and their loved ones, instead of offering wild speculation and complaining about your own inconveniences on the road.
beerbong writes:
I was speaking of how fast at least one of these cars was going. You do not have this kind of destruction going the speed limit.
Hillary writes:
two cars hitting head on at 45 is like one hitting a wall at 90
EnoughCorporateGreed (Inactive) writes:
Myth...busted
http://mythbustersresults.com/mythssi...
savethewhalz writes:
Sad. What are the odds of winning the Powerball? Probably the same as being a Bonitian driving through Naples while inadvertently slaughtered by a geriatric Bonitian flying a Ford Mustang.
beerbong writes:
What would you suggest? I live in a 30 mph zone,and there are kids and people walking our street. The norm is 40 to 45, some do 55 to 60 and more. When did 30 mph become 50 or 60. On I-75 the speed limit is 70, I drive in the right lane at 75 to 78 mph and constantly have people tail gating and blipping their bright lights at me. I I'm not poking around. When did 70 become 85 or 90 mph. Again tell me what you would do. You do not make cars completely unrecognizable in a 40 mph crash. I do not think having some brains is stepping on anybodies freedom.
Ruskin writes:
When you have nothing of importance to say, put a sock in it.
beerbong writes:
Nothing was said about going 20 mph. Nothing was said about riding horses. Our brains controls our foot, our foot controls the speed of the cars. I know it is fun to go fast. We are killing each other,is that the new modern thing to do. With all the modern distractions in cars, we have controlled mayhem at best. There is no need to drive like a mad man every where you go. Buckle up and slow down.
beerbong writes:
So what. Slow down
cnc1128 writes:
This is so sad. Rather than your stupid comments and playing "Can You Top This", stop and say a few prayers for the deceased that she Rest In Peace.
cnc1128 writes:
You "MORON", I hope the deceased's family does not read your uneducated comment. How horrible, you're a real sicko.
muleman1 writes:
James Hogan, 72, of Bonita Springs, 2011 Mustang, Speeding, and more than likely a snowbird that was running late for his early bird special at Perkins equals BAD NEWS!
Old geezers over 60 need to either stay up north, give up their Driving priviledges,take the bus, or all of the above!
Same crap every year!
RIP to the other person who is now dead because of speedy old geezer in a rush for nothing. Just plain stupidity!
ChancelorKitty writes:
You all with your snide remarks are deplorable!!!!!!
You should know that the innocent victim in this ACCIDENT (it appears the man my have had a medical emergency) was a seasoned Registered Nurse. Over many years she tended to the sick and comforted others.
Now is the time for us to remember her and comfort her family.
So if you have nothing nice to say, then just ZIP IT!!!!!
NaplesSparky writes:
Your comments weren't deleted, you posted them in the wrong place. You posted them on the page of one of the photos of the crash here: http://www.naplesnews.com/photos/2013...
d262 writes:
Sorry Hillary:
Two cars hitting head on at 45 is like one hitting a wall at about 65 MPH. Simple physics. Wish driving in Naples was simple too.
Tweedledee writes:
My condolences to the family and loved ones of Ms. Daneau.
cnc1128 writes:
Look here, know it all bottom Hole(you knlow the hole that I refer to), you are bad news. Don't you know accidents happen at any age. How many teenagers have killed people because they were big deals showing off driving Mommy's Mercerdes/BMW?
Magic81 writes:
If you were up earlier, you may have seen the original headline indicating a "possible" fatal, and as facts come in, the headline is updated. Feel foolish??
Magic81 writes:
Story says caused b a medical condition---a head on even at the speed limit can be pretty destructive. It is common to wait for evidence before making definitive statements about causes. Uninformed statements can make a person sound foolish.
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