2 nuns, 81-year-old driver killed in 'bizarre,' 'violent' 11-car crash in Oak Lawn [View all]

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2 nuns, 81-year-old driver killed in 'bizarre,' 'violent' 11-car crash in Oak Lawn

By Tony Briscoe and Alexandra Chachkevitch, Tribune reporters
1:49 pm, October 6, 2014

An 11-car pile-up that killed three people, including two nuns, and injured nearly two dozen other people in Oak Lawn started when someone approached an 81-year-old driver slumped over the wheel of his pickup truck, authorities said Monday. ... Unsure if the driver was asleep or ill, the man asked if there was a problem and offered to park the truck. But the driver said he was okay and sped off down 95th Street around 4:30 p.m. Sunday, police said.

At Keeler, he struck three cars but kept on going, police said. At Cicero Avenue, the light was red so the driver swerved from the westbound lanes into the eastbound lanes and collided with 11 more vehicles, becoming airborne and landing on the hood of Kimothy Randall's black Volkswagen. ... "Like it dropped out of the sky," said Randall, 55. "Just the sound of it scared me."

The driver of the pickup, Edward Carthans, was dead on the scene. Also killed were Sister Jean Stickney, 86, and Sister Kab Kyoung Kim, who both belong to the Little Company of Mary which runs a hospital about two miles from the crash. ... Eleven other people were taken to hospitals, two of them in critical condition, and about a dozen people were treated at the scene.