Crash kills one

Wasilla woman dies in P-W Highway wreck

February 10, 2006

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Sandy Bonnell left a meeting with her accountant in Wasilla on Wednesday because she didn't feel well, and decided she had to drive home to Palmer.

It was a few minutes after 2 p.m. when, ahead of her on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, Bonnell saw people converging where a wreck had just occurred, pulling out their cell phones. Some went over to a small blue Toyota pickup, others trotted over to a white Chevy van. But nobody seemed to notice a dark-blue Subaru Forester sitting askew near a stop sign at the highway's intersection with Plymouth, or the injured woman inside.

&#8220I almost just drove on, but I saw no one was with the woman in [her] car, so I pulled over and went to her,” Bonnell said of the moments she spent with that woman, Cheryl M. Gittlein, 58, of Wasilla, before rescuers arrived. &#8220I wanted to be with her, for some reason.”

Bonnell said Gittlein was conscious, moaning and not dressed for the sharply cold weather, although there was a winter coat in the back seat. With the door missing, Gittlein was exposed to the below-20-degree temperatures, and Bonnell held the injured woman to keep her warm and away from the jagged pieces of metal. Then Bonnell called 911 and told the dispatcher she didn't know what to do, right before an off-duty emergency medical technician came to her side.

By then, Gittlein was unconscious, Bonnell said, but she told the injured woman she was going to let EMTs help her.

&#8220I said, ‘God bless you' to her, and she opened her eyes again and looked at me,” Bonnell said. &#8220I felt a connection. I wanted her to know she wasn't alone.”

Gittlein dropped into unconsciousness right after that, and firefighters and paramedics ran up to start removing her from the Subaru. Bonnell stayed. She was out of the way of police and rescue personnel, remaining unobtrusive. But she wouldn't leave, she said, until she knew Gittlein was safely in the ambulance.

Bonnell remained while an Evergreen medevac helicopter thundered in, circled and landed on the highway, east of the crash site, blowing a storm of loose snow over the fire trucks, crash wreckage and rescuers, who held up red tarps to conceal and protect Gittlein.

People gathered on nearby bike paths, hillsides and businesses and waited as minutes ticked by for rescuers to whisk a stretcher to the still-thrumming, ready-to-lift-off chopper.

Suddenly the motor stopped and the helicopter's rotor blades spun down. There would be no rescue.

The deadly crash and its aftermath brought traffic to a halt on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway for more than two hours Wednesday, until flat-bed trucks were finally able to ferry away Gittlein's ruined Subaru and the other vehicles.

Later, Alaska State Troopers reconstructed the four-vehicle wreck that ended Gittlein's life and sent two other people to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

Michelle Cooke, 33, of Wasilla, had stopped her 1989 Toyota pickup truck in the eastbound lane, waiting to make a left turn onto North Plymouth, according to troopers.

Alexander Machelas, 24, of Palmer, who was driving east in a 2001 white Chevrolet van, rammed Cooke's truck from behind, sending it into the oncoming lane, where it hit Gittlein's westbound 2001 Subaru.

The collision between Gittlein's Forester and Cooke's Toyota ripped the driver's door off the Forester and sent the car spinning off the north side of the highway and into the front of a red 1991 Ford sedan driven by James W. Benedict, 49, of Wasilla, which was stopped at the stop sign on Plymouth, waiting to turn onto the highway, according to troopers.

Benedict said at the scene that the events during the crash all happened so fast they were blurry. He told troopers he wasn't injured. Rescuers took Machelas and Cooke to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center for treatment, troopers said.

Gittlein was pronounced dead at the scene, according to troopers.

Gittlein had moved from Colorado back to Alaska two years ago to enjoy retirement surrounded by lots of family, according to Tricia Bartel, whose sister married Gittlein's son. Speaking from her home in Oregon, Bartel said most of Gittlein's Valley family had just flown out to another family gathering in Colorado.

&#8220Now, they're all scrambling to get back there,” Bartel said.

Bonnell had picked up Gittlein's scattered personal belongings and made sure rescuers got them, noticing the many craft items in the car.

&#8220She loved scrapbooking,” Bartel said. &#8220Stamping and scrapbooking were her things.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.