LONGMEADOW (AP/CBS) — A 40-year veteran of the United States Postal Service was one of two people killed in a crash in Longmeadow Thursday.
The crash involved a pickup truck and a mail delivery truck near the Connecticut border.
Police in Enfield, Connecticut say they were trying to stop the pickup driver, 47-year-old David Cersosimo of Rocky Hill, Connecticut, who was believed to be under the influence of alcohol. Police say Cersosimo fled across the state line into Longmeadow where the crash occurred at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
Cersosimo and letter carrier Dan Nacin were transported to Baystate Medical Center where they were pronounced dead.
The USPS says Nacin celebrated his 40th work anniversary in May and he will be “greatly missed.” Nacin worked out of the Enfield Post Office. More at CBS Boston
Look at the difference in the damage to the trucks. Dan’s truck’s body looks to be completely sheared off its chassis. The REAR wheels of Dan’s truck are under the FRONT wheels of the pickup truck. We need to keep pushing resolutions for safer trucks at natonal! It’s great that resolutions are brought up at the county level and passed at state and possibly national levels, but none of that matters until it’s seriously brought up at contract negotiations and FOUGHT FOR!! NRLCA needs to protect its members and DEMAND safer vehicles (and not just the LLVs).
In January of 2014, while hanging very far out of my LLV truck to pry open a low box (which, as an experienced sub new to that route, I had recently written up for being noncompliant, but the fulltime carrier, Richard Harrington, tore up the postal form) by a reckless, uninsured motorist, Heather Jacobsen of Broad Brook, Connecticut. She was trying to pass me, she told East Windsor Police Sergeant Chant, and gunned it to try to beat an oncoming car. She then decided she wasn’t going to make it, so took me and my truck out, without ever braking. Sergeant Chant, and East Windsor EMS estimated, by the two vehicles’ damage, that she was going 40-45mph. She struck me so hard when she rearended me that she pushed my truck forward, slamming it into a low stone wall with such force that my truck popped up and onto the wall. She did over $16,000 in damage to the truck, USPS Vehicle Fleet Maintenance said. Per the US Attorney General, I had to get a lawyer to sue the owner of Ms Jacobsen’s car, her boyfriend, Jay Pelletier, of Broad Brook, CT, and also to sue to pay for my Workers’ Comp pay and accident related hospital bills (yes, you DO have to pay a lawyer and sue to pay yourself Workers’ Comp and your own medical bills when in a postal accident, even when you’re the innocent victim). Some of my more serious injuries were: a traumatic brain injury, PTSD, bilateral fractured wrists, bilateral impact carpal tunnel syndrome requiring five surgeries, broken molars, triple broken nose, abdominal/kidney damage, ruined ankle. It doesn’t take much to get severely harmed with lifelong, irreparable injuries in the current models of the LLVs we drive, and I was a religious seatbelt wearer.
If I were in a reinforced truck and postal rules about box heights were strictly enforced, I wouldn’t have been injured so severely, and maybe I could still work and drive. If Dan had been in a reinforced truck, maybe he could’ve survived the crash- injured, but alive. If you look at the early accident pictures from the street side, you can see his seat is in one piece and still bolted to the floor. If only they bolted chassises to the frames like that, maybe Dan would still be alive, or at least not have died in such a horrible way.
Again, safer trucks need to be fought for during contract negotiations. The last time I personally saw resolutions for truck safety get to national was after Barbara Satula, a Bethlehem, Connecticut rural carrier, was killed on 12/29/2009 by a fallen branch. Considering it will take years to swap out safer trucks or reinforce current trucks, if changes are even approved, action needs to be taken NOW. Please DEMAND of your national union officers that the trucks carriers drive seven days a week be made safer. Thank you.