Paul Bass photos
The scene Thursday morning on Boulevard near Edgewood.
Andrew Tudesco: "People are hurt because of me."
A van driver issued an appeal for people to avoid phone distractions behind the wheel after he caused a three-vehicle crash that sent a mom and her baby to the hospital.
The crash took place on Ella Grasso Boulevard between Edgewood Avenue and Maple Street Thursday shortly before 9 a.m.
Andrew Tudesco, 42, was driving a U‑Haul van southbound on Boulevard for his employer, Liberty Community Services, which helps homeless people find supportive housing. He was delivering a client’s belongings to her new apartment.
Tudesco said he had just begun driving the truck, was still getting used to it.
“I looked down at the phone. I stopped paying attention for five seconds. I saw it coming up on the car. As I tried to hit the brake, my foot went behind it,” he said.
In those five seconds, he slammed his U‑Haul into a Hyundai Sonata that was stationery at a red light. A 21-year-old woman was inside the Sonata along with her 2‑year-old son and her boyfriend.
The force propelled the Sonata to slam into a Honda Accord stopped ahead of it. It was the first hours of June, following a month in which New Haven police logged 752 motor vehicle accidents.
“Sunshine” Brantley (pictured) heard the crash from a block away. She had just walked her dog Cocoa after returning home from an overnight nursing shift in Branford. She rushed to the scene. Arriving before the ambulance crew, she spoke with the Sonata’s occupants to “make sure how they feel, neurologically.” They could speak and walk; mom had a headache.
Brantley was about to get her some ice when the ambulance crew arrived. Medics put mom in the ambulance right away to take her to the hospital. They eventually took in the boyfriend and baby for observation as well. “He’s going to be sore tomorrow, but he’s OK,” assessed Brantley, who’s still hurting from the time a few years back when a driver crashed into her vehicle at a red light in Middletown.
The mom in the Sonata, meanwhile, had called her own mom, Medria Givens, who rushed to the scene from her job in Hamden. She said her daughter was taking the baby to preschool in West Haven on her way to her own job.
The Sonata driver said she was OK. Her car, not so much. A crew from Superior Auto Repair & Towing, working first on clearing the debris from the Sonata’s smashed rear …
… and shoveling it into the back of the U‑Haul. Why? “It’s called clearing the scene no matter what,” the Superior worker explained.
NHPD
U‑Haul driver Tudesco watched the scene from the sidewalk, physically OK, but obviously shaken up.
Asked to reflect on what had just happened, he said: “If you’re going to use GPS, use some sort of stand on your dashboard. Or have somebody else in your car. Because I thought I could handle it. And now these tragic events occurred. People are hurt because of me. I’m going to have to face the financial and emotional consequences.”
Click on the video to watch the full conversation with nurse Sunshine Brantley on the“Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program.
One small thing the city can do to reduce the risk of such crashes is to ensure that all intersections have legible street signs. In many locations, you have to use GPS to know where you are.