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MILFORD - A Marion man was killed Monday evening when the car he was driving went under a semi trailer at the intersection of Ind. 15 and U.S. 6, three miles north of Milford. A power outage at the time of the accident may have affected the operation of the traffic light there.
Donald W. Gause, 79, was pronounced dead at the scene of the 6:50 p.m. accident.
According to an Elkhart County Sheriff's Department release, Gause was southbound on Ind. 15 approaching the intersection, and a semi tractor/trailer driven by Joshua C. Mishou, 25, of Kuna, Idaho, was eastbound on U.S. 6.
Both vehicles reportedly entered the intersection at the same time and collided. Gause's car drove under the trailer of Mishou's rig and out the other side. His car was run over by the trailer's rear tires. Gause's car came to rest off the travel portion of the roadway on the southeast corner of the intersection. Mishou continued east on U.S. 6, bringing his rig to rest on Elkhart CR 23.
Officials could not confirm whether the traffic light at the intersection was working at the time of the accident. Officers were in a meeting this morning and dispatchers were not aware of the power outage in the area.
However, Chris Taelman of NIPSCO said the traffic light at that location is controlled by a line tied into the Milford substation, where a fire in a regulator caused an outage to about 2,000 customers in the Milford area. The power outage occurred between 6 and 7 p.m. and also affected the traffic lights on Ind. 15 in Milford.
The ECSD was investigating another fatal traffic accident just east of that location, at U.S. 6 and Elkhart CR 25, this morning. Information on that accident, which reportedly involved two semis and a car, was not available at press time.
