Wrong-way I-80 wreck: ‘They killed my son’
BY SUSAN DEMAR LAFFERTY slafferty@southtownstar.com February 6, 2012 8:30AM
Tow-truck crew members remove the wrong-way car that slammed head-on into Jason Wepsiec’s car in the westbound lanes of Interstate 80 early Monday. | Joseph P. Meier~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: March 8, 2012 8:07AM
A history of family tragedies weighed on a former Steger couple Monday as they made a long, painful drive north from Alabama.
This one hurt the most. They were on their way to the Cook County morgue to identify the remains of their only son, killed in a fiery crash on Interstate 80 when a vehicle going the wrong way rammed his car head-on.
Police suspect alcohol was a factor in the crash and told the couple the occupants of the other car had been at the Skybox strip club in Harvey.
“It’s been a horrible day,” Sue Wepsiec said.
She and her husband Jim Wepsiec were awakened by Illinois State Police at 4:30 a.m. Monday to learn that Jason Wepsiec, 34, of Sauk Village, had died instantly in the horrific crash on I-80 near Kedzie Avenue in Hazel Crest. The driver and two passengers in the wrong-way car also were killed, while one passenger in that vehicle survived.
The others killed were Gustavo Vargas, 29, of Berwyn, who was driving the other vehicle; Jorge Pina, 27, of Chicago; and Armando Ruiz, 29, of Berwyn; police said. The sole survivor, Eduardo Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, was in stable condition at Christ Medical Center, police said.
There were no passengers in Wepsiec’s car.
Police said Vargas had been on I-294 but mistakenly wound up on westbound I-80, where he made an illegal U-turn at a turnaround for emergency vehicles and headed back east in the westbound lanes. His car was traveling at a high rate of speed when it crashed into Wepsiec’s car, witnesses told police.
“I’m sorry about the other people, but they also killed my son,” Sue Wepsiec said. “Police said the other driver decided to turn around on the highway. People should not have a driver’s license if they don’t know which side of the road to drive on.”
She said she had just talked to Jason on Sunday.
“I wish I had told him I loved him,” she said.
As the Wepsiecs traveled from Alabama, where they retired a few months ago, Sue was dreading their pending visit to the morgue, unsure if she would be able to recognize her son. Police said both cars were engulfed in flames after the crash, which happened about 2:30 a.m. Monday.
“I don’t really want to go (to the morgue),” Sue Wepsiec said, “but I have to.”
Illinois State Police were notified of a wrong-way driver at 2:18 a.m., according to Trooper Ivan Bukaczyk. A short time later, a 1996 Infiniti slammed head-on into Jason Wepsiec’s 1999 Ford wagon that was given to him when his grandmother died.
Jason was driving the right way at the wrong time, his mother said. He was on his way to his girlfriend’s house near Joliet, where he was to report to the unemployment office Monday morning. He wanted to be closer to the office, and afterward, he planned to return to his sister’s house in Sauk Village, where he was living.
“I don’t know why he was out at that time,” Sue Wepsiec said.
The accident, which shut down I-80 for six hours, was the worst in a series of tragedies for the Wepsiec family.
Sue Wepsiec said Jason was born with a hole in his heart and had open heart surgery when he was 13 months old. When he was 10 years old, he was burned in a fire at a friend’s house. Two years later, his family’s apartment caught fire.
Sue Wepsiec said she also lost a grandson 11 years ago in an accidental drowning in Wisconsin. And Jason has an 11-year-old son whom he has not seen in eight years, she said.
“Now we’ll never see him,” Wepsiec said. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”
Sue Wepsiec lovingly remembered her son, who loved picking away on his guitar but couldn’t sing.
He also enjoyed fly-fishing and bowling. The family was in a bowling league together in Chicago Heights a few years ago.
“He could never throw a ball. He didn’t weigh much,” his mother said. “He was 125 pounds soaking wet.”
Jason also loved football, and he and his dad talked Sunday about the Super Bowl. Jason was a New York Giants fan; his dad was for the New England Patriots.
The family originally was from Chicago, where Jason attended De La Salle High Institute. After the family moved to Sauk Village and later Steger, he attended Bloom Trail High School. He earned his GED from Prairie State College and convinced his mother to do the same.
“He said, ‘Mom, you can do it,’ ” Sue Wepsiec said.
On her Facebook page, Jason’s girlfriend, Kelli Burback-Minger, wrote, “He was trying to turn his life around. Always happy and we were madly in love.”
“Y did this happen now?” she wrote.
It marked the second wrong-way driving accident within a week in which alcohol was a contributing factor, police said.
On Feb. 3, Rakesh J. Baker, 23, of the 6900 block of South Michigan Avenue, was charged with DUI after he drove the wrong way for more than six miles on the outbound Stevenson Expressway before crashing into another car at Lake Shore Drive, critically injuring himself and another driver, police said.
Contributing: Sun-Times Media
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