Poulsbo woman dies in Highway 3 incident

Published 11:00 am Saturday, May 1, 2004

CHICO — When a concerned passerby stopped at a roll-over accident scene, she found a ringing cell phone, answered it and told the victim’s daughter her mother was in a terrible accident, said authorities.

Paris Zammarchi, a 48-year-old Poulsbo woman, died around 12:40 p.m. Wednesday after a semi-trailer tire crashed through her car’s windshield on southbound SR 3 near Chico. Authorities said her death was likely instantaneous.

“It was an unfortunate circumstance,” said Washington State Patrol spokesman Glen Tyrrell.

The 300-pound, 41-inch tall tire broke loose from a northbound Port Angeles-based Atlas Trucking semi-trailer driven by Robert Erickson, 64, of Port Angeles. It bounded across the median before striking Zammarchi’s 1990 Toyota sedan in the left southbound lane. Her car veered off the road and rolled over before coming to a stop on its roof. The violence of the crash ripped off the car’s passenger-side front wheel and suspension. Zammarchi was wearing her seatbelt.

“We don’t know why the (truck’s) wheel came off and that’s the challenge for us,” Tyrrell said.

The car and the truck tire were approximately 500 feet away from each other and chunks of automotive safety glass were scattered along the road.

Erickson was unaware he had lost the tire until troopers pulled him over near Silverdale. The vehicle was taken to the Silverdale Target store where it underwent an inspection.

“It’s normal to do a work-up on commercial vehicles after an incident,” Tyrrell said.

No felony charges are currently pending against the truck driver or the truck’s owners, though the incident is still being investigated.

Southbound traffic on SR 3 was backed up for hours when the State Patrol closed off the right lane. That didn’t stop Zammarchi’s daughter from reaching the scene where she was notified of her mother’s death.

The Kitsap County Coroner’s office declared Zammarchi died from blunt trauma to her head and chest.