WESTPORT — A Montreal woman died in a one-car accident on Interstate 87 on Monday, ejected from a vehicle that flipped after striking some rocks.
Police said Angela Pierre, 69, was backseat passenger in a 2005 Nissan X-Trail driven by Jean W. Aurelien, 38, of Terrebonne, Quebec, traveling northward. At about a quarter mile north of mile marker 119 in Westport, police said, the vehicle veered off the west side of the northbound lane, struck a metal marker post then crossed both lanes of the Northway. The car left the east side of the road, hit a rock cut then flipped over and landed in the northbound driving lane.
Pierre was pronounced dead at Elizabethtown Community Hospital. Aurelien and his wife, Lynda Oreste, 35, who'd been riding in the front seat, were treated for minor injuries at the hospital in Elizabethtown.
An autopsy conducted at Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake by Dr. C. Francis Varga found Pierre died from blunt-force trauma to the chest.
Her death was ruled accidental.
Police couldn't say what caused the crash; the investigation, in conjunction with Essex County District Attorney Kristy Sprague, was not complete on Monday afternoon.
Email Suzanne Moore at: smoore@pressrepublican.com


