OFF THE WIRE
Laurie Rich Salerno
Three bikes went down in traffic during motorcycle gang's annual memory ride.
East Main Street between Parker Avenue and Newton Street is closed while Meriden Police work to reconstruct a three-motorcycle accident that sent two members of the Diablos Motorcycle gang to area hospitals – one with head injuries.
The accident occured at about 11:15 a.m., according to witnesses, when three motorcycle drivers with the Diablos "dumped" their motorcycles at the intersection of East Main Street and Cottage Street. Each vehicle had two riders, and was part of a larger"memory ride" to visit gravesites of fallen club members.
A female passenger was transported to Hartford Hospital with head injuries, and a male driver, who witnesses say was driving the bike she was on, was taken to MidState Hospital in a neck brace and with a possible broken arm. Other bikers in the accident were sitting in lawns on the South side of East Main Street with ice packs, and talk of broken toes, cuts and bruises. A bloodied paper towel lay on the ground underneath police tape surrounding the accident scene at 1 p.m.
Stories as to what made the drivers crash differ.
One Diablos member who was not involved in the crash, but riding behind in a truck, said a van cut the riders off, forcing them to abandon their bikes rather than be hit.
The member declined to give his name, but told Meriden Patch that the bikes were headed East in a middle lane on East Main Street when a green Chevrolet Astrovan shot across East Main Street from a cemetary driveway onto Cottage Street in front of the riders. This he said caused them to turn quickly left and abandon their bikes in the left lane of East Main, rather than hit the van.
The driver of the Astrovan, a Meriden man named Jackson, who asked that his surname not be included in this article, said he had nothing to do with the accident. He said he was bringing his wife and two small children home from a store, and heard the crash after he made a left turn from East Main Street onto Cottage Avenue. He said he called 911 from his phone and stayed to help victims, and was surprised when he heard the riders were blaming the accident on him.
"Their speed was too much," his wife Mellanie said, attributing that to the motorcycles' fall. She said she prayed to God that the riders would be OK.
Neighbors at the intersection of East Main Street and Cottage Ave., who were picnicking on their front porch during the investigation, said they also called 911 when they heard the crash, but didn't see anything.
At 12:30, police said the accident was still under investigation.
A Diablos member said the two who were taken from the hospital were both from New Hampshire. The Diablos Motorcycle Club is a national motorcycle gxxg with a chapter in Meriden and clubhouse at 168 Grove St.
During a memory ride, Diablos members caravan to area cemetaries to visit the gravestones of fallen members, according to one Diablos member who declined to give his name.
http://meriden.patch.com/articles/diablos-motorcycle-accident-sends-two-to-hospital
