6-year-old girl dies in car crash

By Anya Tikka
WESTFALL TOWNSHIP — A 6-year girl Lackawaxen girl died in a crash Monday afternoon on a busy and congested Route 84 East.
Brooke Piemonte of Lackawaxen was a passenger in a 1990 Toyota Camry driven by Tammy Mathisen, 44, also of Lackawaxen, which rear-ended a car stopped in traffic. The girl was taken to Bon Secours Hospital in Port Jervis, where she was pronounced dead, according to Pennsylvania State Police at Blooming Grove.
The other vehicle involved was a 2005 Ford Freestyle driven by Cindy Czajka, 61, of Norwich, Conn., according to Trooper Kevin Varcoe. Passengers Kaylee Manning, 29, and a two-month-old boy, both from Norwich, were wearing seatbelts.
Mathisen was also wearing a seatbelt, according to the report, but Brooke wasn’t.
The police report said Mathisen crashed into the back of the other car failing to realize the traffic had come to a full stop.
“Traffic was completely stopped due to construction,” said the police report.
No one else was hurt in the accident.
Photographer George Hunter, who was in the area taking photos for the Courier related to another story, described the scene: “There was a lot of rubber necking and people milling about. But I did not find anyone who actually saw the accident as it occurred. The accident investigation was going on as I snapped images for wwhile.”
The accident happened at 3:28 p.m., during busy afternoon traffic.
A call to the Blooming Grove barracks on Wednesday found there’s no update at this time.