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Educator Dead After Crash on Interstate 81

BENTON TOWNSHIP —  One person is dead after a crash near the Lackawanna and Susquehanna County line. It happened just before 8 a.m. on Monday on Interstat...

BENTON TOWNSHIP --  One person is dead after a crash near the Lackawanna and Susquehanna County line.

It happened just before 8 a.m. on Monday on Interstate 81 south near Lenoxville.  The coroner confirms at least one person has died in this crash.

The three-vehicle crash closed Interstate 81 at the Lackawanna and Susquehanna County line for nearly four hours Monday morning.

The crash resulted in a death of Patricia Pasierb of Jefferson Township, a special education teacher in the Mountain View School District.

Word of the deadly wreck spread quickly throughout the area and was felt within the Mountain View School District.

Pasierb was a passenger in a silver Subaru. Police say a Volkswagen collided with the Subaru while traveling northbound.

The collision sent the Subaru airborne across the median and into the southbound lane, where it collided with a Ford SUV. The female drivers of both vehicles were taken to the hospital.

Pasierb, an administrator and special education teacher in the Mountain View School District, was on her way to work with a co-worker.

"I received word about 10:30 or 11 o'clock. Everybody was pretty shook up about it, that it happened and how it happened because it was a pretty bad accident," said Krista Short of Clifford.

The wreck closed the southbound lanes on Interstate 81 until after noon.

Mountain View Superintendent Karen Voigt drove past the crash.

"I saw the accident on the way to school this morning, figuring it was in the southbound lane that it affected somebody terribly, but not our school district. When I arrived, I was notified that two of our employees had been involved in the accident," Voigt said.

Voigt says that the mood within the school district is somber, knowing one of its own, a special education teacher, passed away.

"One of the teachers is going to be fine, but it's just a lot of disbelief. When you get up on a Monday morning, coming to school, it's the Monday blues. Coming to school, you never expect anything like that."

Back in 2014, Pasierb was a finalist to be superintendent in the Scranton School District. She has been with Mountain View for two years.

Dr. Pasierb and Giordano are both from the Mount Cobb area in Lackawanna County.

Jodi Padavano lives in the same area. She says she too has to drive nearly an hour to work each day and she worries.

"A lot of times I just stay in the right lane and just kind of stay behind somebody. The cars are passing me on the left, speeding. There's times they're flying by me which means they're going way over 80," said Padavano of Jefferson Township.

"It's just terrible. I don't know if it was a blind spot issue. It's awful. People who are going to work and then they don't. It's sad," said Dawn Lockwood of Lake Township.

Counselors will be available in the district for those who need those services.

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