Maryland officials tout road worker safety progress as I-695 crash reports shed light on investigation

As officials touted Maryland’s efforts over the past year to reduce work zone crashes, new reports from a federal probe of the crash that killed six highway workers on Interstate 695 have shed light on what happened last year on the Baltimore Beltway.

The National Transportation Safety Board recently opened its public docket, releasing reports that say one of the drivers charged in the March 22, 2023, crash in Woodlawn claimed she had a seizure and blacked out during the collision at about 12:40 p.m. that day in a median construction zone. The reports also say toxicology tests after the crash detected THC, the psychoactive substance in cannabis, in her system, but not a “cocktail” of multiple prescription drugs that prosecutors have cited.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, state and federal officials gathered on a temporarily closed Interstate 70 bridge that overlooked the site of the crash to kick off National Work Zone Awareness Week to highlight efforts to get drivers to slow down and honor the fallen road workers. Underneath, a caravan of construction crews paraded across the beltway’s inner loop in a “unity ride.”

Investigators from the NTSB and Maryland State Police have both said Lisa Lea, 55, and Melachi Brown, 21, were driving on the Beltway in excess of 120 mph before the crash, which caused Lea’s vehicle to tumble into the wide entrance of the work zone, immediately killing the six workers on site. The collision prompted Maryland officials and traffic safety workers to rethink how the state handles work zone safety. The NTSB is still working on a final report that will include the probable cause of the crash, though officials have attributed much of the blame to driver behavior.

Brown, who was uninjured, pleaded guilty to six manslaughter counts and was sentenced in March to 18 months of incarceration.

Lea, the remaining motorist facing trial in Baltimore County Circuit Court, was hospitalized in critical condition following the crash. Her lawyers said she sustained “severe and traumatic injuries” including her shoulder being fractured and four of her fingers being amputated. She faces a 28-count indictment including manslaughter and impaired driving charges.

One of the new NTSB reports note inconsistencies in Lea’s accounts — she told hospital providers after the crash that she was taking seizure medication as prescribed, then that she hadn’t taken it in two days. Later, she told a neurologist evaluating her at the hospital that she had stopped those medications a year before, though she had been having symptoms recently.

The neurologist was unable to determine if she had a seizure disorder, the report said.

As far as the crash itself, Lea told the hospital neurologist that all she remembered was “feeling like her normal self then blacking out and waking up in the hospital hours later,” according to a report. Medics who responded to the crash documented that she “reported that she had a history of seizures and had experienced a seizure prior to the crash,” though bystanders and first responders had not seen Lea unconscious, the report says.

The neurologist ruled that some of her symptoms “might be sleep-disorder related” and recommended further testing, the report says. The NTSB’s medical report does not identify Lea by name but instead refers to her as a “driver” matching Lea’s age and vehicle.

Drug screenings performed on the then-54-year-old after the crash returned positive results for delta-9-THC, the primary psychoactive substance in cannabis, as well as trace amounts of cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxant, according to the NTSB’s report. It does not mention any other positive results other than “substances that had been administered after the crash.”

A prosecutor said during Lea’s bail review that the Randallstown resident told police that she was on a “cocktail” of several other prescription medications including oxycodone, an opioid that the tests didn’t detect, according to the NTSB’s report. Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger said Tuesday that the list of drugs was based on Lea’s statements to police and that prosecutors were still waiting on the NTSB to forward its results.

Lea’s defense team last week filed motions saying that police interrogated Lea just a few hours after the crash, while she was in the hospital under several doses of fentanyl and morphine and was still severely injured. Because she didn’t understand her rights while in that condition, her lawyers argued, those statements to police should be kept out of her trial. Lea’s attorneys also argued that her impaired driving charges should be dropped, as her indictment does not specify what substance they were accusing her of being impaired by.

Lea is slated to return to court May 8 for a motions hearing.

At Tuesday’s work zone safety event, Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller touted the accomplishments of the Work Zone Safety Working Group, a board that Gov. Wes Moore convened after last year’s crash. Last week, Moore signed the Maryland Road Worker Protection Act, a bill focused on expanding the state’s work zone speed camera program. State Highway Administration officials said they are implementing more lane closures to keep workers safe. A group of state transportation officials has signed on high-profile work zone safety ambassadors, including Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman.

A national traffic safety trade association had worked with the Maryland Department of Transportation to hold this year’s kickoff in Maryland due to the scale of last year’s crash, which Miller said was “the deadliest work zone crash in Maryland history.” But just a few days after the first anniversary of the Woodlawn crash, six more road workers died when the Francis Scott Key Bridge, another section of the Beltway, collapsed below them. Two others were injured.

“It’s not only about the lives that we lost, but it’s about the workers that continue to be out there and experience these events and still keep coming back to serve our community,” Bruce Gartner, director of the Maryland Transportation Authority, which oversaw the Key Bridge, said.

In front of the podium on the interstate bridge were 14 traffic cones, each draped with a black ribbon — one for each road worker who died in Maryland in 2023 and 2024.

Baltimore Sun reporter Cassidy Jensen contributed to this article.