Seven people were taken to the hospital and one was airlifted to Yale-New Haven Hospital after a seven-vehicle crash on Interstate 95 South in Waterford involving a tractor-trailer on Sunday night.
Saumya Arora, 33, suffered incapacitating injuries after a tractor trailer carrying frozen food struck the car she was a passenger in and hit two others, causing collisions with two other cars south of exit 82, State Police said.
State Police responded at 7:28 p.m. on Sunday. A tractor-trailer driven by Kevin Custer, 60, of Swansea, Massachusetts, collided with three cars driven by Vikram Dhawan, 39, of New York, New York, Cheryl Laffey, 59, of Waterford, and Jason Grant, 38, of Attleboro, Massachusetts, State Police said. Grant's car then struck a fifth vehicle driven by Adam Miller, of North Port, Florida, who made contact with a sixth car driven by Andrew Southard, 32, of Allentown, Pennsylvania, according to State Police. Southard's car hit a seventh vehicle that Gabriela Cajal, 44, was driving, State Police said.
Dhawan, the driver of the car Arora was in, also had possible injuries, as well as Laffey, driving the third vehicle hit, and her passenger David Laffey, 44.
It's unclear who else was transported to the hospital with possible injuries.
Southard, the driver of the sixth vehicle, had family members in the car with him at the time of the crash, including Samantha Southard, 30, and 1-year-old Catherine Southard, according to State Police. Marcela Cajal, 47, and Maya Champignon, 7, were passengers in the last car hit that Cajal was driving.
State Police did not say whether anyone in Grant's, Miller's, Southard's and Cajal's cars were injured.
Local
I-95 was closed from 9:30 p.m. Monday to 6:20 a.m. Monday.
Waterford police and State Police's collision analysis reconstruction team and truck squad also responded.
State Department of Transportation and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection officials and an environmental contractor came to the scene to clean up "spilled fluids," according to State Police.
Authorities notified the Department of Consumer protection that the tractor-trailer involved in the crash was carrying frozen food products, State Police said.
