A woman traveling to to watch the solar eclipse at a campsite in upstate New York died Saturday after she fell from a moving trailer onto the highway.
According to the state police, Robert P. Woroniecki, 59, of Stony Brook, Long Island, was driving a pickup truck hauling an Airstream camper with family members inside around 3 p.m. While passing through Brownville in Jefferson County on State Route 12E, the passenger door of the trailer blew open and Monika I. Woronieck, 58, was thrown from the trailer and hit her head on the road.
“Cape Vincent Ambulance transported Monika to Samaritan Medical Center’s Emergency Room where she succumbed to her injuries and was pronounced deceased,” the state police said in a statement.
The road was closed briefly but reopened later Saturday.
State police said the investigation was ongoing.
According to researchers, traffic deaths before and after eclipses are on par with the number of deaths seen during other heavy travel periods, like Thanksgiving and July 4th. However, the reason behind the increase is the physical uptick in drivers traveling to observe the celestial phenomena, not the eclipse itself.
