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'I'm Lucky To Be Alive': Rollover Crash Survivor Says Road Should Have Been Closed After Water Main Break

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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- A woman says she's fortunate to be alive after a rollover crash on a street that had apparently iced over because of a water main break.

She wants to know why the street hadn't been shut down.

It happened Thursday night on Woodruff Street on Mount Washington.

"I'm lucky to be alive," said 30-year-old Kellee Masucci during a phone interview from her hospital bed at UPMC Mercy.

She says she was on the ice without warning and lost control: "I was trying my hardest to get control of the vehicle, and I just couldn't. I was sliding all over. I smashed up into the hillside, and then I rolled down."

Her car flipped over three times. The road conditions were so bad, she says firefighters had trouble getting to her.

"It was more chunks of ice and with water, you know, sliding underneath it," said Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Theresa Kail-Smith.

She had driven on the street several hours before the crash and reported the icy conditions to a Public Works supervisor.

"I do believe that they salted. I just don't know what happened after that," said Kail-Smith. "I don't know how long it took for the water company to shut the water off and stop the water running."

Masucci says shutting down the street would have kept her from driving on the ice.

"By all means it would have been preventable, if they would have just put a barricade up and you'd know not to go down there," she said.

Kail-Smith says she wants to get answers, too.

A spokesperson for Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority emailed a statement that says in part: "PWSA takes this issue extremely seriously and is investigating its response to the break. When repairing a water main in cold weather, PWSA coordinates with city agencies on an ongoing basis to minimize road hazards that may be caused by icy conditions."

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