It’s hard to imagine heartache and joy could come from the same car accident, but the woman who died in Wednesday morning’s crash on I-95 south in New Haven was doing what she had always done: helping a friend.
Gwen Buskey, 53, of New Haven, had borrowed her mother’s car to drive her longtime friend Vera Mercer, 41, also of New Haven, to Bridgeport Hospital, where Mercer was due to deliver her second child via cesarean section.
Just after 5 a.m., after Buskey had stopped her car behind a tractor trailer that had also stopped, another big rig slammed into the 2002 Oldsmobile, shoving it underneath the front of an 18-wheeler.
Buskey was pronounced dead on the scene. Mercer was rushed to Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she successfully delivered a baby girl, Camryn Faith, who weighed in at 7 pounds, 2 ounces.
According to Mercer’s sister, Beverly Owens, she remains in the intensive care unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
“The anesthesia is wearing off,” said Owens, who lives in East Hartford. “They were asking her to squeeze their hand and asking her her name and she knew everything.”
Everything except that she was in an accident, in which her friend died.
Owens said their other sister is flying in from California to help care for baby Camryn, who is expected to be released from the hospital soon.