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Youngstown woman mourns loss of ‘lovable person' in triple-fatal crash
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Elizabeth Barthany saw pictures of the Jeep on Facebook on Tuesday that was involved in a fatal accident on Youngstown-Hubbard Road – but she couldn’t believe it was her vehicle.
But when she arrived at the scene, she discovered it was her white Jeep. The driver, her mother’s boyfriend, was dead; a passenger was injured and two people in another car were also dead.
Barthany had trouble standing after she heard the news.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let him leave,” Barthany cried as a man who was with her supported her. “I knew I shouldn’t have!”
Barthany said the driver of the Jeep was Mark Blackburn, who was in his 40s. Police are still trying to piece together details of the accident that happened about 1:35 p.m. on Youngstown-Hubbard Road near Thorn Hill Avenue.
Lt. William Ross of the police department’s Accident Investigation Unit said the Jeep was going north and a car was traveling south when the two vehicles collided head on. Ross said he was not sure yet if one vehicle tried to pass another, and then caused the collision.
A third car was also involved and it drove off the road to avoid the accident and was stuck in a nearby yard.
Ross said he did not want to release names of the victims until their next of kin are notified.
Investigators from the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office were also on the scene.
The impact appeared to be significant, as debris was scattered over a wide area of the crash site, near Mahoning Valley Memorial Park, a veterans’ cemetery.
Barthany said Blackburn, of Hubbard, had borrowed the Jeep from her Logan Avenue home to pick up her mother, who is in West Virginia.
She said a friend of Blackburn’s went with him, and is the person now in the hospital.
Barthany said she started seeing pictures of the Jeep on Facebook so she went to the accident scene to see if it was her vehicle. It took her a while to speak to a police officer but when she finally did and found out it was her Jeep, she began sobbing. She called her mother in West Virginia and was crying into the phone as she walked across the lawn of the cemetery.
“Mom, I can’t do this,” Barthany was saying into the phone.
Barthany said later she had known Blackburn for more than 20 years. She said Blackburn started dating her mother just a short time ago.
“He was a lovable person,” Barthany said. “He loved to hunt and to fish. It’s really devastating right now.”
She said her mother is devastated as well.
“I just heard my mother screaming in the background.” Barthany said.
The passenger in the Jeep is being treated at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.
The fatalities are the first traffic deaths in the city this year.