Huntingburg man sentenced in fatal Ferdinand accident
Wednesday, the Dubois County Superior Court sentenced a Huntingburg man involved in a Sept. 24 accident north of Ferdinand that killed a Perry County woman and injured a Ferdinand woman.
As part of a plea agreement, Brandon W. Chamberlain, 24, of 6178 W. State Road 64, pleaded guilty to a Level 4 felony count of operating while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content greater than .15 percent and a Level 6 felony count of driving while intoxicated causing serious bodily injury.
Chamberlain was involved in the crash September 24, 2014 that took the life of Donna M. Evans, 60, of Cannelton. At the time of the accident, Chamberlain’s blood alcohol content was determined to be .24 percent.
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The court sentenced Chamberlain to seven years in the Indiana Department of Correction. Then two years on work release and two years on probation. While on probation, Chamberlain will be required to wear a SCRAM alcohol monitoring device for 365 days.
According to the Indiana State Police traffic accident investigation, the crash reconstruction conducted by Sgt. Philip Hensley determined that when Chamberlain struck the Buick Century driven by Donna M. Evans and subsequently killed her, he was northbound in the southbound lane and was traveling 74 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone.
According to Hensley, Chamberlain was traveling northbound on State Road 162, north of Ferdinand, in a white 2012 Ford F-350 SuperCrew pick-up truck when he went left of center and struck Evans’ Buick Century.
The impact pushed Evans’s vehicle backwards and off of the east side of the roadway.
As Chamberlain’s Ford continued north, due to the violent dynamics of the crash, an ATV in the bed of Chamberlain’s truck became airborne and bounced through the windshield and roofline of a red 2013 Mazda CX-5 SUV, driven by Donna R. Trafton, 58, Ferdinand.
Impact by the ATV shattered the windshield and peeled the roof back off of the vehicle before coming dislodged and landing in a driveway on the west side of the roadway. Trafton’s SUV came to rest on a hillside, also on the west side of the roadway.
As a result, Trafton suffered two broken vertebrae in her neck and was taken to Memorial Hospital by ambulance.
After losing the ATV and sideswiping Trafton’s vehicle, Chamberlain’s Ford rolled onto the driver’s side and slid northbound in the northbound lane. The vehicle came to rest without rolling over any additional times. Chamberlain had to be extricated from the vehicle by first responders and was flown to St. Mary’s Hospital in Evansville for treatment of a broken tibia.
Evans was transported to Memorial Hospital in Jasper, where she succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced dead by the Dubois County Coroner.
