STAMFORD -- An angry 30-year-old Stamford man took a box truck from his workplace after a fight with his girlfriend and left a wake of mangled sedans, vans, parking meters, signs and garbage cans on the city's East Side before smashing into a bus filled with high school students Tuesday afternoon.The driver, identified by his employer as Christopher Simonelli, crashed into 12 cars on Myrtle Avenue and East Main Street and was listed in critical condition at Stamford Hospital with life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
A female driver of a sedan struck by Simonelli near the corner of East Main and North State streets was also listed in critical condition, police said.
A nursing supervisor at Stamford Hospital told the Associated Press that 22 others were treated for minor injuries.
"He had a cigarette in his mouth and two hands on the wheel," said Dominick Colandro, the 48-year-old owner of Rinaldi's Deli on East Main Street. "He was in a rage. It looked like he was on a mission."
Witnesses described a scene in which an angry-looking Simonelli used the white box truck to hit car after car and take out meters and signs on the sidewalk before ending his crazed drive by running into a school bus.
"There's a tremendous amount of damage," Police Capt. Brian McElligott said. "He hit everything that could be hit."
Criminal charges have not been filed against Simonelli because he is in the hospital, said Stamford Police Chief Robert Nivakoff. The accident is still under investigation.
Several bystanders called 911 to report the string of car accidents around 2 p.m., McElligott said.
Simonelli allegedly got into a fight with his girlfriend and took the truck from his employer, Action Letter Inc., on Elm Court and then raced through the CTTransit bus maintenance facility there. The truck crashed through the rear gate of the CTTransit property and then hurtled north on Myrtle Avenue before turning west on East Main Street.
The accident shut down a quarter-mile stretch of East Main Street from Glenbrook Road to Myrtle Avenue until 7:15 p.m. causing major gridlock throughout the downtown area.
At the scene, firefighters extricated Simonelli from the torn-up box truck. At least a dozen of the 27 Stamford High School students on the bus went to the hospital with minor injuries, police and school officials said.
School district spokeswoman Sarah Arnold said a second bus took the students and a driver to the hospital, where Principal Donna Valentine met them and contacted families of the students on the bus.
Gus Gustavo-Ortiz, a 29-year-old East Main Street resident who lives in an apartment overlooking where the box truck hit the school bus, said he heard a loud bang and looked outside to find the chaos of the accident scene. He walked to the accident site and saw a high school student exit the bus with a bruised face. He helped the student brush broken glass bits from his hair.
He could only see a hand hanging out from the mangled cab of the box truck, moments before firefighters arrived and freed Simonelli.
"I thought this guy was dead," Gustavo-Ortiz said, adding that Simonelli screamed as he was loaded onto the stretcher.
Colandro said from outside his deli he saw hundreds of bystanders gather around the accident site moments after it ended.
Svitlana Shevchuk of Stamford was making a left turn off of Myrtle Avenue and heading westbound under the railroad bridge on East Main Street when Simonelli cracked into the left rear of her green Dodge Caravan, causing minor damage.
Shevchuk had no idea that the part time employee just struck at least three other cars while driving the box truck north on Myrtle.
"We did not see where he was coming from -- he was like a ghost," she said.
After Simonelli hit the minivan he stepped on the gas, Shevchuk said. Just then, UBS employee Robert Jacobs, 34, was running a quick errand in his black Lexus and driving in the opposite direction on East Main Street.
"I saw him hit that car and I thought that was strange that he hit the car and kept on going. Then he turned the truck toward me and accelerated," Jacobs said. For a second Jacobs thought of making a quick dash across East Main and turning left on Crystal Street to avoid the oncoming truck.
"I decided to stay and I put my hands on the wheel and held on for dear life and hope that he didn't kill me. And he didn't kill me," said a shaken Jacobs standing next to his unrecognizable car that was pushed into a dump truck with the front end smashed in. Jacobs said he and another man got out of their cars and chased the box truck up the street until they saw it collide with the school bus and stop. Jacobs said he did not want the guy driving the truck to get away with the hit and run and wanted to take a picture of the truck with his cell phone.
"My neck is killing me," he said moments before he was put on a stretcher and taken to the hospital.
Delivery driver Jason Gabie from Harrison, N.Y. said he was making a delivery to Rinaldi's deli on East Main Street when he saw Simonelli's truck barreling down the street.
He saw the truck crash into Jacob's Lexus and crash into two or three other cars, some coming from the other direction.
Then Gabie said the truck veered onto the sidewalk, tear two parking meters off their posts and then swing around to the other side of the street where it struck the school bus in front of Brake Centers of America, just east of Quintard Terrace.
Gabie said the driver had a cigarette in his mouth and he looked very angry.
"I was scared until he passed me, but I was more scared when he hit the bus," Gabie said.
A CTTransit guard said the box truck came through the open front gate of the bus maintenance facility at the end of Elm Court and crashed through the locked rear gate that exits directly across from La Marqueta grocery store at 54 Myrtle Ave. From there Simonelli turned left and proceeded north on Myrtle.
Next door to the maintenance facility a woman who works for Action Letter, Inc., at 11 Elm Court said that Simonelli is a part time employee and has been working for her company for about six months.
The woman, who would not identify herself, said she had no idea why Simonelli took the truck and had no idea about his breaking up with a girlfriend. She said she told the police the box truck was stolen.
"It is tragic," the woman said. "It is really tragic."
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My mother, grandmother, and 4 year old sister were all on their way by this scene and missed it by 5 minutes- I'm so grateful they weren't involved in this bad accident, I would've gone to the scene and finished that f*cker right off.By the way, I found his facebook!"Kim Nielsen: every bone in his body is broken he's on life support they don't think he's gonna make it! damn my lil brother!He sliced an artorie and is bleeding bad there tryin to stop it!"
STAMFORD -- A voice recognition expert testified Friday that the 911 caller who first alerted police to the homicide of Anna Lisa Raymundo on Nov. 8, 2002, was self-represented defendant Sheila Davalloo.
