High toll on highways

WASILLA — A 16-year-old Palmer girl died Monday on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway when her 2000 Volkswagen Beetle collided with a Ford truck.

Alaska State Troopers report Ramy M. Olson was northbound on Acorn Street and attempting to turn west onto the highway when the accident happened. She pulled out in front of an eastbound red 2001 Ford F-250 driven by David R. Cravy, 39, of Wasilla and the two vehicles collided.

Trooper Sgt. Pat Davis said the crash occurred at about 8:45 a.m. The truck’s occupants were checked out and released on scene, troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said.

According to the AST report, Cravy, his two passengers and Olson were all wearing seatbelts.

“We actually had a trooper that was right here when it happened,” Davis said. “He heard the accident happen and looked up.”

Olson, who would have been a junior at Colony High in the fall, lived in Meadowbrook subdivision, down Acorn Street. She was described by one of her former teachers as a typical teenager with a great sense of humor and a good attitude.

Emily Forstner taught English at Colony Middle School when Olson was an eighth-grade transfer student from the South, moving to Palmer with her military family.

Forstner remembered the blonde as a little spacey sometimes, as teenagers are, but a good writer and a great kid who giggled a lot.

While it wasn’t always easy being a teenage girl with a mother deployed in the military, Forstner said Olson made the effort to be a good student.

“She had a heart of gold,” Forstner said. “She just kept trying.”

Olson was a junior varsity cheerleader at Colony High.

After the crash, troopers kept one lane of the highway open for most of the morning, alternating the direction of traffic flow.

At about 10 a.m. as tow truck crews worked to separate and remove the vehicles, the road was shut down entirely. Motorists pulled into a nearby coffee stand to ask for directions around the snarl.

As Davis spoke, rescue crews from the Central Mat-Su Fire Department worked to pull the girl from her wrecked Volkswagen. They cut the roof from the vehicle and, at 11:15 a.m., the girl was removed from the scene in a State Medical Examiner’s van.

The Volkswagen was totaled and the truck received $10,000 damage, troopers report. Tow truck crews swept up glass and removed debris from the shattered vehicles. The highway was reopened Monday afternoon.

The Palmer-Wasilla Highway, where numerous traffic lights were installed over the summer, has long been near the top of the list for most dangerous roads in Alaska. According to the Mat-Su Borough, between 1977 and 2005 there were 18.1 fatalities or major injuries per mile of the highway.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiers-man.com or 352-2270.