Vehicle Fire

Three injured in head-on crash on Md. 34; one woman in fair condition SHARPSBURG -- Two West Virginia women were flown to the hospital Monday night after a head-on collision on Md. 34 between Sharpsburg and Shepherdstown, W.Va., Maryland State Police said. Roberta Johnson, 29, of Shenandoah Junction, W.Va., and Andrea Diehl, 21, of Charles Town, W.Va., were taken to Washington County Hospital on Monday. Their injuries were not life-threatening, police said. Johnson was listed in fair condition Tuesday morning and Diehl was still in the emergency room, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The Berkeley County, W.Va. Sheriff's Department was responding to an accident on Interstate 81 Wednesday afternoon, an emergency services dispatcher said. The accident happened at the 11-mile marker in the southbound lanes and involved a vehicle fire and someone trapped in the vehicle, the dispatcher said.

HAGERSTOWN - Police trying to keep track of a speeding vehicle in the middle of the night just after Christmas had no idea they soon would be responding to a fire, according to the comments of Hagerstown Police Department Chief Arthur Smith and an officer at the scene. Neither police nor their families know what dangers might await them when they go out on calls, Smith said Wednesday during an annual memorial ceremony for fallen officers. Smith paid tribute to individual officers, including a group who helped put out a vehicle fire, for their heroic actions in the last year.

FREDERICK, Md. - A sergeant with the Frederick County Sheriff's Office was placed on administrative leave Friday after he was arrested earlier in the day on charges in connection with a Sept. 2 vehicle fire, according to a Sheriff's Office press release. Theodore Randolph Dorsey, 37, of Knoxville, Md., was charged with second-degree arson and first-degree malicious burning in connection with the fire to a vehicle that belonged to a woman that he was living with, according to the release.

WASHINGTON COUNTY - Debris from a truck fire and drivers who were "rubbernecking" caused traffic delays on northbound Interstate 81 for several hours Sunday, according to Maryland State Police. Crews will return at about 7 a.m. today to remove debris from a section of I-81 in Halfway where a truck caught fire, Sgt. Robert Reid said. According to police, northbound I-81 was closed for about 45 minutes after a Graebel Van Lines moving truck caught fire. Though no one was hurt, debris caused the closure of one lane of traffic for several hours, and drivers slowing down to see what was going on tied up traffic for miles into West Virginia, Reid said.

HAGERSTOWN janeth@herald-mail.com When Melissa and Dominick DiMercurio II made front-page news this summer, they were in no position to enjoy the limelight. The siblings were being treated in the burn unit at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, N.J., after escaping a fiery accident. On July 26, the DiMercurio family - Melissa, 16, Dominick, 11, Nicholas, 8, and their parents, Dom and Donna, both 44 - was returning to its home in Brightwood Acres East after visiting family in Long Island, N.Y. The family's minivan was on Interstate 78 in New Jersey when a vehicle in front kicked up a piece of metal that is believed to have punctured the van's gas tank.