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Icy bridge on Interstate 90 results in three crashes

JANESVILLE — A series of single vehicle crashes on a bridge on Interstate 90/39 south of Janesville resulted in multiple injuries Saturday, authorities reported. All three crashes occurred in about a 15-minute span.

Law enforcement agencies offered differing accounts of the incidents.

One of the crashes left at least three adults and two children injured, according to the Wisconsin State Patrol.

Police and fire department reports said that at 6:45 a.m. Saturday, Ruben Castillo, 36, of Elgin, Ill., lost control of a Chevrolet Astrovan on the bridge at mile marker 179 near Janesville’s south side. The van rolled three times before ending up in the median.

Five of the eight people in the van, including two children, were taken to Beloit Memorial Hospital with injuries, the Wisconsin State Patrol reported.

Injured were Ruben Castillo, Soledad Castillo, 42, Sanjuana Castillo, 34, and two children, all of Elgin. The injuries were not life threatening, police said.

Janesville Fire Department reported as many as seven people in the van were transported with injuries, including four children taken to Mercy Hospital in Janesville.

Beloit Memorial Hospital did not respond to a request for patient condition reports.

Mercy Hospital in Janesville had no record of any children admitted Saturday for vehicle injuries.

Just minutes before the van crash, Wisconsin State Patrol had responded to another single vehicle crash at the same location.

Police said at 6:39 a.m. Saturday, Randall J. Perino, 61, of Ottawa, Ill., was crossing the same bridge when he lost control of his SUV. The SUV went into a ditch and flipped end over end, landing on its top.

Perino and a passenger, Marianne Perino, 53, of Ottawa were transported to Mercy Hospital in Janesville, where they were treated and released.

Shortly before Perino’s accident, police said a Beloit man driving an SUV lost control on the same bridge. The man’s vehicle slid down an embankment and hit a tree before stopping in a field. The driver and a passenger were not injured.

Parts of I-90 were closed after the accidents, with traffic detoured for about 90 minutes, police said.

Snowfall late Friday and temperatures that hovered around freezing early Saturday could have led to icing on some highway overpasses, said Sgt. Greg Jenswold of the state patrol’s DeForest post.

On days with precipitation and low temperatures, Jenswold said drivers should “always expect bridge decks to freeze first.”