A witness told a Maryland state trooper that a Chevrolet operated by U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, passed her while “traveling at a high rate of speed” on Sunday morning before the Democrat’s SUV rear-ended another vehicle, according to a police report.
No citations have been issued in connection with the crash on Interstate 70 in Western Maryland, according to the Maryland State Police report obtained Thursday by The Baltimore Sun through a public records request. The report, which places Fetterman at fault for the crash, says the senator followed too closely and operated his Chevrolet Traverse in a “reckless or aggressive manner.”
The freshman senator, his wife and a 62-year-old Pennsylvania woman who was driving the Chevrolet Impala that they struck at about 7:45 a.m. Sunday were taken to War Memorial Hospital in West Virginia for possible injuries, according to the report. Both vehicles were towed from the scene in Washington County for “disabling damage,” it says.
A spokesperson for Fetterman said earlier this week that the 54-year-old incumbent was treated for a bruised shoulder and that he and his wife, Gisele, were discharged from the hospital Sunday afternoon. They are “doing well and happy to be back” in Braddock, Pennsylvania, the statement says.
“I need to do better and do it slower — and I will,” Fetterman said in a statement, calling the crash an “unfortunate accident” and adding that he is “relieved and grateful that there were no serious injuries.”
The Fettermans thanked the public for their well wishes in a video posted on X after the crash, which they said had soiled their 16th wedding anniversary.
Neither the woman whose car was rear-ended by Fetterman’s nor the witness immediately returned requests for comment Thursday.
The state police report says that the woman listed as a witness to the crash described Fetterman’s vehicle as traveling “well over the posted speed limit,” which she said she was traveling at. The speed limit is 70 mph on the stretch of westbound I-70 where the crash occurred, just before the exit onto I-68.
Fetterman began serving in the Senate in 2023 after beating Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in a race that ultimately maintained a slim Democratic majority in the chamber. Fetterman, who had previously served as Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor and mayor of Braddock, suffered a stroke days before he won the state’s Democratic primary. The junior senator still has some trouble speaking fluidly and quickly processing spoken conversation due to the stroke, and regularly uses devices in congressional hearings to transcribe spoken words in real time.
Despite his injuries from the crash, he returned to the Senate this week.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
