Four vehicles crash near Bel Air Wednesday night

It was a hectic and crazy Wednesday evening for police and fire and emergency crews around the Bel Air area.

A woman fell in a neighborhood near C. Milton Wright High School, a man was hit by a car while walking his dog and four vehicles crashed on Route 1 (Belair Road) in front of the Jones Junction auto dealerships in Benson – all within about an hour.

The mayhem started around 5 p.m., when the woman fell in the 1100 block of Oakwood Lane in the Village of Thomas Run community. She was flown by Medevac helicopter to a local trauma center.

The helicopter landed on the high school campus, according to a post written on the Facebook page of the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company, by Rich Gardiner, a member of the company and spokesman for the Harford County Volunteer Fire & EMS Association.

The Bel Air Police Department was notified at 5:20 p.m. of an accident involving a pedestrian near the intersection of Linwood Avenue and Giles Street in town.

The pedestrian, identified as John Kostinko, 69, of Bel Air, was flown by Medevac to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was listed in critical condition at 8:20 p.m., according to a news release from Bel Air Police Department.

A preliminary investigation revealed that Kostinko was walking his dog along Linwood Avenue when he was hit by a 1998 Chevrolet, driven by Elizabeth Kregel, 46, of Bel Air, according to the news release. There are no sidewalks in this immediate area.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact BAPD Det. Sgt. Jim Lockard, 410-638-4500 or jlockard@belairmd.org.

Maryland State Police are investigating the four-vehicle crash that happened shortly before 6 p.m. in the 1400 block of Belair Road and tied up homebound rush hour traffic.

One person was taken by ambulance to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore for treatment, 1st Sgt. Jeff Thomas of the State Police Bel Air Barrack said.

Police were alerted to the accident at 5:52 p.m.

The accident, which involved what one witness described as a "chain reaction" of rear-end collisions, happened in front of the Jones Junction dealerships and near the State Police barrack.

"They were stopped and the last car just plowed into them," said Richard Banthem, a car porter at Jones Junction, who was taking a vehicle to the Nissan service bay when he saw the accident happen.

"It just caused a chain reaction from there, and it was pretty loud," the White Marsh resident continued. "It was like a shotgun went off or something."

The accident involved one vehicle hitting the rear of another vehicle stopped south of the intersection with Harford Road. That vehicle was pushed forward into the vehicle in front of it, and that vehicle was pushed into another.

Relatives of the person who was taken to the hospital, and drivers of the other vehicles, gathered around the scene of the accident as firefighters and EMS workers with the Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company provided assistance.

Traffic heading north and south on Belair Road was limited to one lane around the damaged vehicles, plus the Bel Air fire truck and ambulances.

Thomas said several hours after the crash that it was still under investigation. As of Wednesday afternoon, State Police did not have additional details, including the identities of the drivers involved and the injured person, available through an accident report.