Roxbury man dies in weekend’s second fatal wrong-way driver crash

By Gal Tziperman Lotan, Globe Correspondent

A 58-year-old Roxbury man who died in a car crash near the entrance of the O’Neill Tunnel in Boston Sunday morning was apparently driving in the wrong direction, a Suffolk County district attorney’s spokeswoman said.

He was identified as Idefonso Barros Sunday night by the district attorney’s office.

Barros died in the second fatal wrong-way crash in Massachusetts this weekend.

Police are continuing to investigate the cause of Sunday’s three-car crash, which occurred at 5:35 a.m. on I-93 north, State Police said.

Barros drove a 1999 Dodge Dakota the wrong way down the I-93 Frontage Road toward the tunnel's entrance and crashed into a 2006 Nissan Pathfinder, said Renee Nadeau Algarin, deputy press secretary for the Suffolk County district attorney’s office.

“The Nissan spun out of control and struck the left side barrier,” she said.

State Police received at least one call reporting a wrong-way driver before the crash occurred, said Nadeau Algarin.

Barros was either ejected from his car or helped out by passing drivers, State Police said. He was taken to Tufts Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Firefighters extricated the Nissan driver, a 45-year-old Chelmsford woman, from her SUV, and she was taken to Tufts Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, State Police said.

It appears both drivers were wearing seat belts, and there is no indication drugs or alcohol were factors, Nadeau Algarin said.

A third driver, in a 2007 Ford Edge, was not injured, Procopio said.

On Friday night, a head-on crash involving a wrong-way driver claimed the lives of two drivers.

Clarence Lux, 84, of New Britain, Conn., drove east on the westbound lane on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Ludlow Friday and collided with Marine Corporal Robert Magee, 28, of West Bridgewater about 8:30 p.m., killing both, police said.

“Wrong-way operator calls obviously trigger an immediate, urgent, and multiple-patrol response,” Procopio said in an email. “Troopers flood the area in an attempt to find and interdict the wrong way driver. It is an extremely dangerous situation. If there is traffic on the road, wrong-way drivers are difficult to stop before they cause a crash, and the crashes they cause are often extremely serious, many times head-on collisions.”

On Friday, State Police received multiple calls reporting a driver traveling the wrong way in the Ludlow area about 20 minutes before the crash and sent two cruisers to seek him, but did not find Lux.

State Police are still investigating why Lux was on the wrong side of the road, Procopio said.

“We are investigating whether a medical condition affected the wrong-way operator and potentially contributed to his operating the wrong way,” he said.