By WPRO News
Authorities in Massachusetts detailed a tragic and deadly crash on Christmas night on the Veterans’ Memorial Bridge linking Fall River and Somerset.
Massachusetts State Police received a call at 11:00 P.M. about a wrong-way crash. They found a Range Rover heading eastbound in the westbound lane of Route 6 that hit an Infiniti SUV head on that It also hit another car.
Dead are the SUV’s driver, Floriano Arruda, 73, of Seekonk and a backseat passenger, his 15-year old grandson, Jacoby Arruda. His wife, Donna Arruda, 68, was taken to Rhode Island Hospital in Providence in critical condition.
Two people in the third vehicle were treated for minor injuries.
The wrong-way driver, identified by the Bristol County District Attorney’s office as Adam Gauthier, 41, of New York, formerly from Somerset, suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Gauthier was arraigned in his hospital bed at Saint Luke’s hospital in New Bedford, and ordered held on $100,000 cash bail.
According to the district attorney’s office, he is is currently being charged with two counts of Manslaughter while Operating Under the Influence, two counts of Motor Vehicle Homicide-OUI Liquor, and one count each of OUI-Liquor with Serious Bodily Injury, Reckless Operation of a Motor Vehicle and Driving the Wrong Way on a State Highway.
