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Arizona woman dies after car rear-ends fire truck
CLOVERDALE — An Arizona woman was fatally injured Sunday morning when the car her husband was driving rear-ended a fire truck on Interstate 70.
Shortly after 8 a.m., the Cloverdale Township Volunteer Fire Department was on the scene of an earlier single-vehicle crash in the westbound lanes at the 38-mile marker. Upon arrival to the scene, fire department personnel positioned all emergency vehicles in the passing lane on the eastbound side of I-70, with all emergency lights activated.
In the first crash, a vehicle hydroplaned in the rain, sliding into the median where it hit the cable barriers.
Cloverdale Fire Chief Kerry Shepherd said he made the call to have the fire trucks park on the eastbound side due to better visibility.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic over there,” Shepherd said. “We came around and parked on the eastbound side because it was just past a hill on the westbound side. There was plenty of room to see in the eastbound side.”
No police were yet on the scene, either to investigate or to direct traffic. However, traffic was moving over to the right shoulder until a 2019 Tesla approached.
The driver, Derrick N. Monet, 25, of Prescott Valley, Ariz., apparently failed to observe the emergency vehicle, running into the back of the parked fire truck.
Monet and his wife, Jenna N. Monet, 23, also of Prescott Valley, received serious injuries from the impact, with firefighters finding them unconscious and entrapped.
“The guy never even hit his brakes,” Shepherd said. “All the traffic had moved over and slowed way down. I’m not sure what happened, why he didn’t move over.”
However, once the impact occurred, the firefighters got back to work.
“As soon as they hit, we grabbed the tools off the other rescue truck.”
With an ambulance still on the scene, paramedics were also present to render aid when needed.
After an extrication that Shepherd estimated took 35-40 minutes, both occupants were transported to the hospital for immediate medical care.
Jenna Monet later succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced deceased at Terre Haute Regional Hospital.
No firefighters were in the truck at the time and none were injured. Shepherd said that while the truck sustained heavy rear-end damage, responders may be fortunate the car struck the fire truck.
“If it hadn’t hit the truck and had come into the median, we wouldn’t have had time to react. That’s why we park them like that — the truck did its job,” Shepherd said. “I don’t know what would’ve happen.
“All of our guys were lucky. It hit pretty hard.”
Senior Trooper Adam Edwards of the Putnamville State Police Post is the lead investigator, being assisted by Senior Trooper Tim Rader, who will be conducting the reconstruction of the accident.
It’s unclear at this time how weather conditions might have affected road conditions. Heavy rain in the area was cited as a cause of the first crash.
State Police also did not indicate if the Tesla was in self-driving mode, a standard feature on all Teslas.
Police said drugs and alcohol were not a contributing factor of the crash.
Other emergency personnel on the scene included additional troopers from the Putnamville State Police Post, Putnam County Operation Life, STAR Ambulance, Indiana Department of Transportation and Curtis Wrecker Service. The Greencastle Fire Department also covered the Cloverdale station during the incident.
For a time following the crash Sunday morning, eastbound I-70 was closed in the area, with traffic diverted at Putnamville Exit 37 onto State Road 243 to U.S. 40.
The road was reopened shortly before 10 a.m.
Glad to have all of his firefighters make their way back from the call, Shepherd was nonetheless somber about the entire incident.
“It’s a bad situation but we did everything we could do,” Shepherd said. “We’ve had a lot of close calls out there. Today was a bad deal for everybody.”