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| Passers-by help push a stuck car out of the snow as another motorist tows it out in Richmond, Va., Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016. A winter storm has hit the East Coast, creating a blizzard with brutally high winds, dangerous inland flooding and white-out conditions. |
At least 29 people
have died as a result of the mammoth snowstorm that pounded the eastern
U.S. The deaths occurred in car accidents, from carbon monoxide
poisoning, and from heart attacks while shoveling snow:
WASHINGTON
-An
82-year-old man who died after going into cardiac arrest while
shoveling snow in front of his home in Washington is the first person
whose death is related to the snowstorm in the city.
The
District of Columbia's Chief Medical Examiner, Roger A. Mitchell Jr.,
announced the man's death during a news conference Sunday evening.
Mitchell
did not release the man's name or say when he died or where in the city
he lived. He encouraged people shoveling to take breaks and make sure
that they keep hydrated.
DELAWARE
-
A U.S. Capitol Police officer died of a heart attack after shoveling
snow at his home in Delaware. Nicole Alston says her husband,
44-year-old Officer Vernon Alston, collapsed Saturday afternoon outside
their home in Magnolia after he'd been shoveling snow for about an hour.
She says he died within seconds. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
announced Alston's death on Sunday, calling him "a fixture on the
Capitol grounds." Capitol Police Chief Kim Dine says in a statement that
Alston was a 20-year veteran of the force.
KENTUCKY
-
A Kentucky transportation worker died Saturday while plowing
snow-covered highways, officials said. The Kentucky Transportation
Cabinet identified him in a statement as Christopher Adams. The
statement says Adams called a supervisor about 5:50 a.m., saying his
plow slid into a ditch. When the supervisor arrived, Adams was slumped
over, unresponsive in his seat. A cause of death has not been released.
-
A man died in southeastern Kentucky when his car collided with a salt
truck Thursday, state police said. Billy R. Stevens, 59, of Williamsburg
was pronounced dead at the scene on state Route 92 in Whitley County.
MARYLAND
-
Two people have died from heart attacks while shoveling snow in
Maryland. A 49-year-old man suffered cardiac arrest while shoveling in
Abingdon on Saturday, County Executive Barry Glassman said Sunday.
Officials in Prince George's County said a man collapsed and died
Saturday while shoveling snow in Fort Washington. Bob Maloney, director
of Baltimore's office of emergency management, said not one life was
lost due to the storm in the city.
NEW JERSEY
-
A 23-year-old New Jersey mom and her year-old son died of carbon
monoxide poisoning while sitting in a running car that had its tailpipe
covered in snow, The Record reported, citing Passaic police. The woman's
3-year-old daughter was also hurt and was hospitalized in "very
critical condition," police said. Authorities believe they were watching
other family members shovel snow and didn't realize what was happening.
NEW YORK
-
Three people died while shoveling snow in New York City, police said.
The New York Police Department's Chief of Department Jim O'Neill told
reporters Saturday one person on Staten Island and two people in Queens
died. He released no further details on the deaths. A police spokesman
said the medical examiner's office will determine exactly how they died.
NORTH CAROLINA
-
Six people have died in car accidents during the storm, authorities
have said, including a 4-year-old boy who died Friday afternoon after
the pickup truck carrying his family on Interstate 77 near Troutman spun
out of control and crashed.
OHIO
-
A teenager sledding behind an all-terrain vehicle was hit by a truck
and killed Friday, the State Highway Patrol said. The truck failed to
yield at a traffic light and hit the sled, which the ATV was pulling in
Wheelersburg, the highway patrol said.
PENNSYLVANIA
-
Authorities in eastern Pennsylvania say a man died of carbon monoxide
poisoning, apparently after his car was buried in snow by a passing
plow. David Perrotto, 56, was pronounced dead less than an hour after he
was found Saturday night in Muhlenberg Township, according to John
Hollenbach of the Berks County coroner's office. Hollenbach says
Perrotto was apparently trying to dig out his car. Investigators believe
he either was in the car with the motor running to take a break or to
try to get out of the space when a snow plow went by and buried the car,
blocking the exhaust and preventing him from exiting. Another person
trying to dig out their vehicle found the running car. Perrotto was
pronounced dead at a hospital emergency room.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Three people have died in South Carolina:
-
Authorities say an elderly couple in Greenville died of probable carbon
monoxide poisoning. Ruby Bell, 86, and her husband, 87-year-old Robert
Bell, were found dead at home by their son over the weekend, Greenville
County Coroner Parks Evans said in an email. He said the time of death
was believed to be Friday night. Russell Watson, the Duncan Chapel Fire
District chief, told The Greenville News that the couple had lost power
during the storm and a relative had set up a generator in their garage.
Watson said the relative left the garage door propped open with a
ladder, but it somehow closed and the generator filled the house with
carbon monoxide.
- The South Carolina Highway
Patrol says a 44-year-old man was killed after being struck by a vehicle
that slid out of control after hitting a patch of ice. The crash
happened Saturday afternoon in Greenville County, the highway patrol
said in a news release.
TENNESSEE
-
A car slid off the roadway due to speed and slick conditions, killing
the driver and injuring a passenger, the Knox County sheriff's
department said.
- A couple in a vehicle slid
off an icy road and plummeted down a 300-foot embankment Wednesday
night, killing the woman who was driving, said Carter County Sheriff
Dexter Lunceford. Stacy Sherrill's husband, a passenger in the car,
survived the crash. It took him several hours to climb the embankment
and report the accident.
VIRGINIA
-
The number of storm-related deaths in Virginia has risen to five. A man
was killed on Saturday in a single-vehicle crash in Virginia Beach that
police blamed on speed and icy road conditions, and Virginia Tech
filmmaker Jerry Scheeler died Friday while shoveling snow outside his
new house in Daleville, local news media reported Sunday. On Saturday,
the state medical examiner's office confirmed three other storm deaths.
They included a single-vehicle crash in Chesapeake and deaths in Hampton
and southwest Virginia from hypothermia.
