Fatal interchange accident
Speed may have been factor
BY JEFFERY SMITH THE LEADER

JASON COX/THE LEADER The aftermath of the I-86 Route 15 interchange accident

PAINTED POST — Driver inattention and speed likely caused the horrific accident Sunday, Dec. 17, at the Painted Post Interchange that killed a Florida truck driver and injured a family of six.

The wreck took place minutes before 4:30 p.m. when a truck traveling on the flyover ramp that connects U. S. Highway 15 North with Interstate Highway 86 West veered out of control.

The tractor-trailer ran over a 4-foot high retaining wall and dropped 77 feet onto I-86 West.

The driver, William Reedy, 62, of Brandon Florida, was killed on impact, troopers said. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

“I’m not saying he was speeding,” Painted Post State Police Inv. Christopher Wilkinson said Tuesday. “He may have been going the speed limit. But the speed he was traveling coupled with not paying attention for a minute likely caused the accident. But we’ll never know with 100 percent certainty.”

The accident set off a chain reaction as a mini-van carrying a family of six hit the wreckage and spun off the roadway into a nearby retention pond.

“If that van would have arrived a second earlier, it would have been real bad,” Wilkinson said. “Luckily, it didn’t.”

The driver of the van, Maria Cantella, 43, suffered a broken leg in the collision. Her husband, James Cantella, received several stitches to his head as a result of the impact. The family is from Barker, a small town near Lockport in Niagara County.

The Cantellas were treated at the Arnot Ogden Medical Center. The couple’s four children, ages 3, 10, 13 and 17, received minor injuries.

“They’re in good spirits,” Wilkinson said. “They will probably be heading home in the next couple of days.”

Maria’s aunt, Barbara Connors of Corning, said the family feels blessed to be

alive.

“The real Christmas story is that no one from this family was seriously injured,” Connors said. “They are recovering and will hopefully be back home by the end of the week. But the emotional scars may last longer than the physical.”

Connors said the family was returning home to Barker after visiting relatives in Binghamton.

The 18-wheeler slammed into the retaining wall for several hundred feet before going over the edge, troopers said. The truck Reedy was driving was new, likely eliminating mechanical error.

“His log book was all caught up and he stopped in Pennsylvania so he hadn’t been driving for a super long time,” Wilkinson said. “So I doubt at that time of the day he fell asleep.”

The State Police Accident Reconstruction Team is working to determine the cause of the accident. The report likely will take months to complete.