Virginia Woman Dies in Six-Vehicle Crash

Charges are pending, authorities said Monday

A Virginia grandmother was killed in a six-vehicle collision in Stafford County Sunday.

The chain-reaction crash began around 6:50 p.m. in the northbound lanes of Route 17, about a mile north of Route 634.

Authorities said Myron L. Vaughn, 49, of Stafford, was driving a Ford F-150 pickup truck in a northbound lane when he sideswiped three other northbound vehicles, including a Volvo station wagon driven by Sue Ann Collins, 50.

Witnesses said Vaughn was traveling between 60 and 70 mph, weaving in and out of traffic.

The force of the impact caused Collins' vehicle to run off the road and cross the median before overturning in the southbound lanes.

Collins, of Summerduck, Va., was ejected from her car and struck by another pickup truck traveling south. She died at the scene. Vaughn ran off the side of the road and hit a tree.

Collins' husband, Blake, was on his way home from Target with one of their grandchildren when he saw the traffic back up near the accident. He said he got an "eerie feeling."

"She was just a saintly woman do anything for anybody. She was the love of my life," Blake Collins told News4. "I just keep praying and dealing with it the best I can."

The couple had spent the past two years fixing up their dream home in Summerduck and had been planning to move in soon.

"We were looking forward to coming here and spending... many years together," said Collins, who choking up as he stood in the kitchen of the home. "That didn't happen."

Another one of the couple's grandchildren, an 8-year-old girl, was in the car with Sue Ann Collins.

Grace Brown, who lives near the accident scene, said her husband ran out to see what he could do, and another Good Samaritan ran to the car to help the little girl.

"She just kept saying, 'I'm OK, I'm OK. Where's my nana?'" Brown said.

The girl was transported to a local hospital, as was Vaughn, the driver of the pickup truck. 

No one else was injured.

Authorities said the driver of the first car that Vaughn allegedly hit was sideswiped about a mile away from the fatal impact. That driver began following Vaughn's truck and called 911, reported Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey.

The second vehicle that was sideswiped contained a woman and children.

A third pickup truck -- the sixth vehicle involved -- was not hit, but was damaged by debris from the crash in the southbound lanes of Route 17.

The investigation is into the collision is ongoing. Charges are pending, authorities said Monday.

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