Accidents part of safety concerns

May 16, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Cheryl Gittlein was driving her dark-blue Subaru Forester west on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway on a clear, cold day in February. According to her family, the mother of three grown children centered her life on her friends and family, loved arts and crafts and could dance like you wouldn't believe. The songs of Elvis and the Beatles were favorites through her life. Gittlein retired as a business woman in Colorado two years before and returned to live in the Valley, to be closer to her family.

Gittlein's life ended on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway on Feb. 8, when she was 58. The roads were clear, the day was bright, and Gittlein made no driving errors except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, early afternoon near the North Plymouth intersection.

This curve in the highway near the bottom of a hill has no signals or turn lanes. While Gittlein was heading west, Michelle Cooke, 33, of Wasilla, was stopped in her 1989 Toyota pickup truck, waiting in the eastbound lane to make a left-hand turn. Alexander Machelas, 24, of Palmer, was heading east in a 2001 Chevrolet van. Machelas' van rammed Cooke's Toyota, sending it into Gittlein's Forester, which spun north and hit James W. Benedict's 1991 Ford Sedan as he waited at the stop sign on North Plymouth.

No one was cited for the crash that sent Machelas and Cooke to the hospital, ended Gittlein's life and closed the highway for more than two hours. The whole thing happened so fast, it was all just a blur, according to Benedict, 49, of Wasilla.

Gittlein's death was the first fatal accident on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway in 2006. It may be the only one for the year on a highway that sees many crashes, but fewer fatalities than other infamous Valley roads.

Yet even when no one dies, the shock and damage to minds, bodies and vehicles carries on.

Robert Butcher, 42, of Wasilla, is a truck driver who has to drive the highway at least once a week to make deliveries. Butcher said he has seen a lot of awful accidents on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. He lived through two.

Butcher was stopped in the westbound lane of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway on January 29, 1996. He was in his own pickup truck, waiting for traffic to clear before he made a left-hand turn a kwik Kard, just east of Cottonwood Creek, and knew there was a car behind him.

&#8220I knew she was back there,” Butcher said. &#8220I didn't think she would hit me.”

But the car did rear-end Butcher's truck, injuring his lower back. Everyone involved in that accident was clean and sober, he said.

Much worse for Butcher was the crash on Jan. 30, 2002, near Cottonwood Creek, about 400 yards from his earlier crash. Butcher was on duty then, driving a semi-tractor hitched to a flatbed, when he saw a 1998 Buick Century in the eastbound lane begin to head toward him.

&#8220I saw her start to lose control, the back end fishtailed,” he said. &#8220I started for the ditch, and the next thing you know she was right in front of me, broadside. I caught the guard rail on the right front of the truck, spun backwards and ended up in the other direction, headed toward Palmer.”

The Buick's driver, Donna Graham, 66, of Wasilla, died at the scene, but Butcher wasn't sure if her death was entirely due to the crash.

&#8220They said she had a heart attack,” he said. &#8220But I haven't heard for sure from anybody. I never heard a whole lot about it.”

Butcher said the whole event was over in five seconds or less. But in those seconds of impact, some discs in his neck protruded and his elbow struck something with such force that it hurt for four years. Eventually, he will have surgery to fix his neck. But the mental images didn't go away, he said. It took about three or four months before Butcher could get back in the truck again, he said.

&#8220It was horrible,” he said. &#8220For a long time I had a hard time driving by it. I'll never forget it. It made me more aware of things.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.