Officials revealed on Sunday that two of the bikers killed in a motorcycle crash in New Hampshire on Friday were from Massachusetts. A total of seven people died in the crash.
Jo-Ann and Edward Corr, both 58, of Lakeville, Mass., were on one motorcycle during the crash.
The others killed were Michael Ferazzi, 62, of Contoocook, N.H.; Albert Mazza, 59, of Lee, N.H.; Daniel Pereira, 58, of Riverside, R.I.; Desma Oakes, 42, of Concord, N.H.; and Aaron Perry, 45, of Farmington, N.H.
All seven died as a result of blunt trauma, New Hampshire's chief medical examiner determined.
All of the men killed were members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, a group of Marine veterans. Both women were supporters of the club.
Two other men from Massachusetts were injured in the Friday crash but are expected to survive. Joshua Morin, 45, of Dalton, Mass., is in stable medical condition at Maine Medical Center. Steven Lewis, 48, of Brimfield, Mass., has been treated and released from an area hospital.
A pickup truck towing a flatbed trailer collided with the group of 10 motorcycles around 6:30 p.m. Friday on U.S. 2, a two-lane highway in Randolph, New Hampshire, a tiny North Woods community. The pickup truck caught fire, and witnesses described a "devastating" scene as bystanders tried to help the injured amid shattered motorcycles.
The tragedy left the close-knit motorcycle community in shock.
About 400 motorcyclists gathered Sunday in Columbia, New Hampshire, for a long-planned Blessing of the Bikes ceremony— which is periodically held, but had special meaning for the motorcycle community in wake of the crash, which authorities say involved members of the Marine JarHeads, a motorcycle club that includes Marines and their spouses.
David Condon, chairman of the Massachusetts Motorcycle Association, said the biker community is reeling from the news. He hopes this crash will spur the State House to take up legislation aimed at updating the motorcycle safety portion of driver's ed classes.
“We don't understand why it keeps getting stalled. And here's an example of people dying,” Condon told WGBH News. “We have a way to educate people for free and we're not taking advantaging of it.”
Condon said while there's been inaction among lawmakers, the public has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for the surviving bikers and the families of those who were killed.
Investigators on Saturday identified the pickup driver as Volodoymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, an employee of Westfield Transport, a company in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Zhukovskyy survived the accident, did not need to be hospitalized and has not been charged, authorities said, but they didn't address details on his whereabouts.
A man who identified himself to the Associated Press on Sunday as Zhukovskyy's father said his son was cooperating with authorities.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
“This was an unusual number of fatalities to have seven in one motorcycle crash. In addition, it involved a commercial carrier,” Kenneth Bragg, head investigator for NTSB, told WGBH News. “Those two things combined made it a pretty good candidate to take it up as an investigation.”
Bragg estimates that the investigation could last more than a year. He said the NTSB undertakes about 10 such major investigations a year.
Bragg said the plan is that on Tuesday or Wednesday, a member of his team will come to Massachusetts to investigate Westfield Transport, the Springfield company that owned the pickup truck.
Associated Press writers Lisa Rathke in Columbia, New Hampshire, Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.
This article has been updated to reflect the correct age of Albert Mazza and the correct spelling of Jo-Ann Corr's name. Mazza was 59 years old, not 49, and Corr's first name was Jo-Ann, not Joanne, as previously stated by the New Hampshire deputy attorney general's office.
