Utility Worker Dies in Route 7 Crash

A Florida utility worker dispatched to the Leesburg area to help Dominion Power with repairs after Friday's storm died Tuesday night after her bucket truck crashed on Route 7 near Bluemont.

Jacqueline R. Green, 57, of Milton, Fla, was part of a 63-member storm team assisting Dominion Power in Virginia as part of a mutual aid agreement, according to Gulf Power, a Florida utility company where Green had worked as a line worker for the past 22 years.

In a statement released Wednesday, the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office said Green was driving a 2004 Freightliner bucket truck northbound on Blue Ridge Mountain Road around 7:20 p.m. Tuesday when she began experiencing brake issues.

According to witnesses, the truck drove into the southbound lane of Blue Ridge Mountain Road to pass the first truck in a convoy of utility vehicles, all headed to a staging area nearby.

Green continued down the hill and began to pick up speed as she approached  its intersection with Route 7, where she struck a 2008 Freightliner trucktractor-semitrailer in the eastbound lane of Leesburg Pike. That vehicle then slammed into the side of a 2012 Toyota Tacoma pickup.

Green died at the scene, the sheriff's office said; her coworker, Jonathan Powell, also of Florida, was transported to Winchester Medical Center. Gulf Power said Powell had been treated and released.

The driver of the pick-up truck and a juvenile passenger were taken to Inova Loudoun Hospital-Cornwall Campus where they were treated and released, police said. The driver of the semitrailer was also taken to INOVA Loudoun Hospital-Cornwall Campus.

Police are investigating brake issues as a cause of the crash.

"We extend our sincere and heartfelt sympathies to the family, friends and co-workers of our fallen colleague, who will be long remembered for traveling so far to help the people of Virginia in our time of need," Dominion Power said in a statement on its Facebook page.