Friday, September 5 – Scooter Crashes On Route 50, Killing One

BERLIN – One local man was killed and another was
seriously injured early Sunday morning after a motor scooter crash on Route 50
at Holly Grove Rd.
launched them into a lane of traffic where they were struck by a passing
motorist.

Around 4:19 a.m. last
Sunday, Maryland State Police troopers were dispatched to a reported motor
vehicle accident on Route 50 at Holly
Grove Rd. The investigation revealed John K.
Dersch, 40, of Ocean
City, had been driving a
motor scooter on eastbound Route 50 near Holly Grove Rd. with a passenger, later
identified as Dennis Ray King, 39, of an unknown address, on the back.

The investigation

further revealed the motor scooter struck a concrete curb at Holly Grove Rd., ejecting Dersch and King

from the vehicle and landing them in the eastbound lanes of Route 50. A vehicle
driven by Isreal Green, 58, of Berlin, was heading east on Route 50 at about
the same time the scooter hit the curb, striking Dersch when he came to rest in
the slow lane of the highway.

As a result of the
collision, Dersch was pronounced dead on the scene. King was transported by
Ocean City Fire-EMS to PRMC in Salisbury
where he was listed in serious condition. The accident is being investigated by
troopers from the Maryland State Police Traffic Safety Division (CRASH) team.

Sunday’s early morning
accident marked the third traffic fatality on Route 50 in and around the Berlin area in two
weeks. Two young men were killed in an accident on the westbound lanes of Route
50 on Aug. 15 when the vehicle they were traveling in left the roadway after
what appeared to be a high-speed race with another vehicle.

Just last Thursday, a
Berlin teen was killed in a single car accident on the westbound side of Route
50 near Route 589 just days before the start of what would have been her senior
year at Stephen Decatur High School.