[StBernard] Three St. Bernard Parish residents die in I-10 wreck in St. Tammany; another St. Bernard man injured

[Westley Annis]

Three St. Bernard Parish residents die in I-10 wreck in St. Tammany; another
St. Bernard man injured
by Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Times-Picayune 
Sunday October 19, 2008, 10:56 PM
Three St. Bernard Parish residents died about 7 miles outside of Slidell on
Interstate-10 after the Jeep they were driving in crashed with a pickup
truck driven by a St. Bernard Parish man Sunday morning.

Sharon Braud, 60, of Meraux; Anne Diaz, 91, of Violet; and Eugene L. Fisher,
83, of St. Bernard all died from injuries they sustained during an 11:25
a.m. crash near I-10's mile post 272.5 in St. Tammany Parish, said Trooper
Louis Calato, a Louisiana State Police spokesman. None wore seat belts.

Thomas McKenzie, 65, of Arabi, was driving the 1999 Dodge pickup Braud and
her passengers crashed into. Though he was moderately injured, he was
wearing his seat belt and survived, according to Calato.

Calato added that while troopers don't suspect alcohol usage in crash, they
will analyze blood samples that were drawn.

Braud was driving Diaz and Fisher in a Jeep in the right lanes on the
eastbound span of I-10 in the moments before the accident, Calato said. She
lost control of the car and swerved across all llanes of I-10. She went into
the median and across it, entering the lanes of the interstate's westbound
span, directly into the path of McKenzie's Dodge.

The Dodge's front end hit the Jeep's passenger door and front fender. The
Jeep rotated counter-clockwise and stopped on the north side of the roadway,
Calato said. McKenzie went off the north side and flipped over before coming
to rest upright in a ditch adjacent to the westbound side.

Acadian Ambulance paramedics later took McKenzie to Northshore Hospital,
where doctors treated him for moderate injuries, Calato said.

Nick Culotta of the St. Tammany Parish Coroner's office pronounced Braud and
Diaz dead at the scene, Calato said. Paramedics took Fisher to Slidell
Memorial Hospital, where he later died.

Braud, Diaz and Fisher were three of four people to die in two separate St.
Tammany Parish wrecks Sunday morning.

About six hours earlier, 28-year-old Vincent A. Oddo died inside a car that
struck trees and flipped in a ditch adjacent to the westbound span of
Interstate-12, about 3 miles outside of his hometown of Mandeville.