On Friday morning, shortly before 7 a.m. I received a call in traffic center from a listener who spotted a crash on Interstate 85 southbound, north of Clairmont Road in Dekalb County. The person calling said that a car hit the median wall, but the wreck didn’t look that serious.
We quickly located the crash on a Department of Transportation camera. We saw a mini van had indeed hit the barrier wall. It looked like the HOV lane and the left travel lane were blocked. Nothing out of the ordinary for a morning rush hour. I alerted Mark McKay, flying in the WSB Skycopter, about the wreck, and asked him if he could fly over the scene. About 10 minutes later, while flying over the crash, McKay told me that he thought the accident was a fatal collision.
I was confused. It didn’t seem like a bad wreck at all. Soon after McKay arrived over the scene, we got confirmation from the authorities that someone, did in fact, die in the crash.
In the 16 and half years that I’ve been a traffic reporter, I’ve covered hundreds of fatal crashes. It’s part of the job. Usually, I try not to think about it, and I focus on doing what I’m supposed to do: help people avoid traffic, and give them alternate routes if need be. This crash was different. This one stuck with me. It didn’t make sense. I’ve seen countless other wrecks that looked a lot more severe, and everyone involved walked away uninjured. And yet, this seemingly benign crash, resulted in the loss of a life.
I left the station two hours later on my way to an appearance at a middle school in Dekalb County. On the way, I passed the crash investigation on the other side of I-85. The van was still up against the median wall with minimal front end damage. Upon closer inspection, the front windshield was collapsed inward. This was not apparent from either the DOT cameras or the chopper video. I assumed that rescue units smashed the windshield in, in an attempt to free the passenger. I soon found out that I was wrong.
Apparently a truck traveling north on I-85 lost it’s wheel, and the wheel flew over the median wall where it crashed through the windshield of the van, instantly, tragically, killing the driver.
The driver was 47-year old Aila Masud, who was driving her 16-year old daughter to school. Remarkably, and thankfully, her daughter was not injured.
According to witnesses, there was nothing the Masud could do to avoid the projectile. In the middle of morning rush hour, there was no where for the vehicle to go. Even if the driver saw the tire hurtling at her, she was almost powerless to do anything about it.
I can’t help but think that if this poor woman had left her house one minute earlier, or one minute later, she’d still be with us today. Wrong place, wrong time, unbelievably tragic result.
I know that I will have to report on more fatal crashes in the future. I know I will have to put my personal feelings aside and do my job. But I also know that I’ll never forget what happened to that poor woman Friday morning.
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