CAPE CHARLES, Va. (Delmarva Now) — The driver of a tractor-trailer that went over the side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel during heavy rains in July had alcohol and drugs in his system, according to a toxicology report.
The crash happened Friday, July 27, at the southbound 12-mile marker of the bridge-tunnel, when a commercial tractor-trailer driven by 33-year-old Jervone Rakeem Hall of Bridgeville, Delaware, collided with a van.
Hall and his passenger, Christopher Fenner, 29, of Seaford, Delaware, died of drowning, according to autopsy results, after the tractor-trailer went through a guardrail and into the bay in an area where the water is 20 to 25 feet deep.
The van's four occupants were treated at the scene and released.
The facility was operating under a posted speed limit of 35 miles per hour at the time because of heavy rain.
Fenner’s body was recovered from the tractor-trailer on Saturday, July 28. Hall’s remains were found the next day eight miles off Fisherman's Island and were recovered by Virginia Marine Police officers, according to a news release.
Heavy rain played a major factor in the crash, along with Hall's following the van too closely, according to an incident report completed by a bridge-tunnel officer after autopsy and toxicology reports were received Oct. 22 from the Department of Forensic Science laboratory in Norfolk.
“Another contributing factor to the crash was found to be that Mr. Hall was under the influence of multiple narcotics and had a BAC of 0.062 which for driving a commercial vehicle is over the legal limit," the incident report stated.
Hall had ethanol, cocaine, benzoylecgonine, methamphetamine, amphetamine, ephedrine/pseudoephedrine and THC in his system, according to the toxicology report.
Additionally, a small pouch was found in Hall's shorts pocket during the autopsy, containing syringes, a small capsule containing a white powder and a lighter, among other items, according to the medical examiner's report.
In February 2017, 47-year-old Joseph Chen of North Carolina died after the tractor-trailer he was driving also went through the bridge-tunnel guardrail and landed in the Chesapeake Bay.
Just prior to the crash, Chen had been waiting at the north toll plaza for a wind restriction to be reduced.
Chen went through the guardrail after trying to pass a slower-moving vehicle.
That crash was the third time since 2014 a tractor-trailer had broken through a guardrail on the bridge-tunnel, Delmarva Now reported at the time — but the only crash of its kind that happened during a time when there was a wind restriction, according to Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel spokesman Tom Anderson.
An investigation determined driver error caused the crash in which Chen died, despite the weather conditions at the time, Anderson said. Because of heavy rain, there also was a 35 mile-per-hour speed limit on the bridge-tunnel at the time that crash happened.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was opened to traffic April 15, 1964, and connects Virginia’s Eastern Shore and Hampton Roads.
Since then, 15 vehicles have gone through the rails and over the edge. The incidents resulted in 18 fatalities, with only two tractor-trailer drivers surviving the fall, according to bridge-tunnel records.