1 Dead In Cranberry Township Crash
CRANBERRY TOWNSHIP (KDKA) – A crash in Butler County has left one man dead early Friday morning.
Cranberry Township police were called to the accident scene along Powell Road, just after 2 a.m.
There was only one car involved in the deadly crash. Police say the driver hit a guardrail and tumbled 80 feet, down an embankment.
"I heard bang, bang and I knew someone had hit the guardrail so I came upstairs to see and I saw a tail light over the hill, flashing," said Holly Deemer, who lives near the scene.
Deemer says she was on her computer when she heard the loud crash. Without seeing it, she knew what caused the noise - another accident on Powell Road. She called 911.
"I just know it hit the guardrail twice, hard," Deemer told KDKA's Lisa Washington.
Police say the driver of the Volvo station wagon crashed, then rolled down the steep hillside, landing in a ravine.
The driver has been identified as Kyle Darville, 32, of Cranberry.
Tire tracks on the shoulder of the road led to the mangled guardrail. Police believe speed was a factor.
"We don't know what all the factors are," said Cranberry police chief Kevin Meyer. "It appears speed may have been one of the contributing factors. The vehicle did go over a guiderail that's obviously designed to keep vehicles from going over the embankment. This vehicle ended up tumbling over that and ended up in the bottom of the ravine."
"It's tricky," added Deemer. "If you don't know the road and you're not paying attention, it happens."
A sign near the scene of the crash shows a speed limit of 35 miles per hour. Deemer says few drivers actually obey the limit. She said she'd seen accidents there before.
"Many," said Deemer, "and actually they changed the S-bend in the road, but not quite enough."
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