Driver in fatal crash was asleep, police say

ARGYLE – The driver of the van that rolled over in August, killing a 15-year-old New York boy and injuring 12 others on Interstate 95, probably fell asleep at the wheel, Maine State Police officials are saying.

The investigation into the Aug. 6 van crash has concluded that the likely cause of the incident was that the driver – 23-year-old Yehoshua Hoffman – fell asleep, Maine State Police Lt. Wesley Hussey said.

“It’s the only logical explanation,” Stephen McCausland, Maine State Police spokesman, said Monday. “We’ve eliminated everything else.”

Hoffman was one of two camp counselors traveling with a group of Orthodox Jewish boys to the Katahdin area for a two-week excursion into the Maine woods. The 15-passenger van left New York at about 8 p.m. and the crash took place at 7 a.m. the next day at northbound mile marker 203. Almost all of the campers were asleep at the time of the crash and the only likely cause was that Hoffman fell asleep, Hussey said. Speed and alcohol were not factors, he said.

Because of his injuries, Hoffman, who was transferred to an out-of-state medical facility and has an attorney with whom state police are working, has not been interviewed, Hussey said.

“He still has some physical issues because of the crash,” he said. “The attorney said he really just wasn’t physically able to be interviewed.”

The van veered into the median, went back across the road and down the sloped embankment and rolled over at least once before it came to rest on its tires, Hussey said. A trailer carrying five canoes broke away from the van and stopped about 50 feet south of the van.

A state police accident reconstruction team examined the van extensively for mechanical defects that could have caused or contributed to the crash, but found none and deemed it mechanically sound, McCausland said.

Gedalia Rosenblatt, of Ramapo, N.Y., was thrown from the vehicle and died in the crash, while Hoffman and passengers Daniel Gabay and Yakov Kahan were seriously injured. The remaining youths, ages 14 to 18, suffered broken bones, sprains and cuts.

The camping party from Camp Seven Springs in Bethel, N.Y., was planning to canoe the Penobscot River, camp at Baxter State Park near Millinocket and hike Mount Katahdin as part of the trip to Maine.

The case will be submitted to the District Attorney’s Office, as all fatalities are, but Hussey said that he would not anticipate any charges.

“There was no issue with the van, mechanically, and no speeding or alcohol involved,” he said.

BDN reporter Nick Sambides Jr. contributed to this story.