Five-car crash on Turnpike in West Boca kills one, injures four
A five-car crash that killed a Lake Worth Beach man and injured four other people shut down the southbound lanes of Florida’s Turnpike in West Boca for at least four hours Wednesday.
The crash began on the Turnpike shortly after 10:30 a.m. when a 38-year-old Pompano Beach man driving a 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 pickup truck collided with the back of a 2016 Ford Transit van that was stopped in the southbound center lane of the Turnpike, just south of Glades Road, Lt. Indiana Miranda, a Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson, said late Wednesday afternoon.
The 40-year-old Lake Worth Beach man, who was originally driving the van, was outside of the vehicle, standing behind it when the pickup truck driver hit him and the van in the lane where it was stopped, according to FHP. It is not immediately clear why the van driver was standing behind the vehicle.
The impact sent the van driver into the concrete median and knocked the van in a southwestern direction, FHP said. The front of the pickup truck crashed into the concrete median and continued moving south while the front of the truck was against the median. It came to a stop in the inside shoulder facing east.
A third driver, a 26-year-old Deerfield Beach man in a box truck, saw the van flung to the southwest and tried to avoid hitting it but instead hit the back of the pickup truck. The whole left side of the box truck crashed into the right side of the pickup truck while still moving east, FHP said.
The box truck stopped facing east “with its left side intermingled with” the right side of the pickup truck in the inside shoulder, according to FHP. The fourth driver, a 69-year-old Boynton Beach man in a 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE350 SUV, tried to stop as he approached the crash but couldn’t in time.
The front of the Mercedes-Benz then collided with the left side of the pickup truck and also stopped in the inside shoulder, FHP said. The fifth driver, a 68-year-old Boynton Beach man in a 2008 Mercury Mountaineer SUV, watched the pile-up and tried to avoid it, but the front left side of his SUV ended up crashing into the front right side of the van, flipping the van onto its side where it began to spin.
The van stopped on the outside shoulder of the Turnpike while the Mercedes-Benz lost control and crossed all southbound lanes, went into the inside shoulder, hit the concrete median and flipped onto its side, FHP said. It stopped while blocking the inside lane of the Turnpike.
Palm Beach County Fire Rescue pronounced the Lake Worth Beach man who was standing outside of the van dead at the scene. All others except the driver of the Mercedes-Benz sustained incapacitating injuries, FHP said.
According to a post on the platform X by Total Traffic Miami, traffic was backed up to Atlantic Avenue as of about 3:30 p.m. with one open lane. Miranda said shortly before 5 p.m. that all southbound lanes had reopened.
FHP is continuing its investigation.
