Father and son die in I-81 crash with tractor trailer in Frederick County

Georgia trucker charged with reckless driving, more charges pending in Saturday crash.

STEPHENS CITY – A Saturday morning accident on Interstate 81 in Frederick County has claimed the life of an Iowa man and his 12-year-old son. The two died at the scene of the accident when a tractor trailer rear-ended their vehicle near exit 307.

Mikhail Shmaydiy, 46, and his son Timothy Shmaydiy died at the scene, according to a Sunday email from Corinne N. Geller, the Virginia State Police public relations director.

Carl Paris, 55, of Georgia, was driving the tractor trailer that hit Shmaydiy’s car, a Mercedes Benz. Geller said he has been charged with reckless driving, though the investigation continues into the incident and more charges may be forthcoming.

Geller stated in her email that the crash occurred around 6 a.m. while troopers were investigating an earlier crash that had occurred a mile south, near the interstate’s 306-mile marker.

The tractor trailer “crested a hill in the southbound lanes of I-81, it came upon slowed traffic due to the crash at the 306 mile marker. The tractor-trailer was unable to brake in time and rear-ended a 2013 Mercedes Benz. The impact of that crash sparked a chain reaction crash among three other vehicles in the southbound lanes. In the end, there were a total of five vehicles involved in the crash, to include the tractor-trailer,” Geller wrote in her email.

Paris and those in the other vehicles that crashed were uninjured, but Geller said a passenger in the sleeper part of the tractor-trailer’s cab was injured during the incident and transported to Winchester Medical Center for treatment of “non-life threatening injuries.”

The earlier crash occurred around 5:30 a.m. Saturday when a minivan traveling south on I-81 ran off the right side of the road and hit a tractor trailer that had stopped in the right shoulder at the 306-mile marker.

“The driver of the minivan, Jennifer L. Cole, 39, of Woodstock, Va., was transported to Winchester Memorial Hospital for treatment of serious but non-life threatening injuries. She was wearing a seatbelt,” Geller’s email relayed.

The driver of the stopped tractor trailer, Milen Pepelyankov, 34, of Chicago, Illinois was not injured. Geller said he was charged with improper stopping on a highway, and additional charges are pending.

Geller said Trooper S.R. Marks investigated the first crash, and Trooper J.T. Hutchinson investigated the subsequent crash.

VDOT spokesman Ken Slack said a detour was set up at exit 310 southbound of I-81 for about six hours, as officers investigated the accident scenes and cleaned up following the two incidents.