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At approximately 3:35 a.m., Troopers from State Police-Danvers responded to crash caused by a wrong-way driver on Route 1 in Saugus that resulted in fatalities of the wrong-way operator and a passenger in the vehicle he struck.
Shortly after 3:30 a.m. State Police-Danvers received calls about a wrong-way driver going south on the northbound side of Route 1 in the area of Sonic restaurant in Peabody. Moments later the vehicle caused a head-on collision with another vehicle on the northbound side in the area of the Army Barracks store in Saugus.
Preliminary investigation indicates the Impala first clipped the rear end of a box truck and subsequently crashed head-on into a 2018 Dodge Journey SUV occupied by two adults.
Troopers rushed to the scene and found the sole male occupant of the wrong-way vehicle deceased inside the Impala, which caught fire, and the occupants of the Journey, a man and woman, with serious injuries.
The operator of the Journey, a 51-year-old Peabody man, was transported to Massachusetts General Hospital with serious injuries. His passenger, Evelyn Pinto, 48, of Peabody, was transported to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital (not MGH as previously reported) where she was pronounced deceased.
The operator of the Impala who was driving the wrong way was LUIS GALLEGO, 29, of Lynn.
The driver of the box truck was not injured.
The facts and circumstances of the crash, including the reason for the wrong-way operation, remain under investigation by Troop A of the Massachusetts State Police with the assistance of the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section and the State Police Crime Scene Services Section.
All three lanes northbound were shut down as a result of the crash. They reopened around 6 am.
