Matthew Smelser was killed on Interstate 70 on January 5, 2020, struck by a tractor-trailer while he stepped out of his ambulance to help a crash victim during icy morning conditions. Six years later, his wife Lynn and their two children, Logan and Adriana, will never make another mortgage payment on the family home. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation announced Thursday that it has paid off the Smelser family's mortgage in full.
A Paramedic Supervisor's Final Call
Smelser served as paramedic supervisor for Rostraver-West Newton EMS, according to CBS News Pittsburgh, capping a 24-year career that also included stints with the UPMC Search and Rescue unit and UPMC's paramedic response unit. Twenty of those 24 years were spent as a supervisor at Rostraver-West Newton, where colleagues remembered him as a strict advocate for roadside safety gear and traffic scene precautions, according to Firehouse Magazine. Fellow paramedics told the outlet that Smelser regularly audited scene safety equipment among his crew, a detail that underscores the grim irony of how he died.
Pennsylvania State Police determined that the tractor-trailer driver involved in the crash would not face criminal charges, citing icy road conditions as a primary contributing factor, per WPXI. Smelser was struck while exiting his ambulance to attend to a victim during hazardous winter conditions, the station reported.
A Bridge and a Law Bear His Name
In December 2020, Pennsylvania transportation and local officials dedicated the Interstate 70 bridge over the Youghiogheny River in South Huntingdon Township as the Matthew Smelser Memorial Bridge, honoring his service near the site of the fatal crash, according to EMS1. That span is now undergoing structural maintenance and upgrades as part of PennDOT's $120.6 million Interstate 70 Exit 46 interchange reconstruction, a project replacing an outdated cloverleaf with a modern diverging diamond interchange and slated for final completion in 2026, per the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
Smelser's death also helped drive statewide policy change. Following his death and other roadside emergency responder fatalities, Pennsylvania enacted Act 105 of 2020, which took effect in April 2021 to overhaul the Commonwealth's Move Over law, as detailed by LebTown. Under the updated law, codified at Title 75, Section 3327, drivers who fail to merge away from emergency response zones or slow down by at least 20 mph face fines up to $2,000 for repeat offenses and a mandatory six-month license suspension if the violation injures or kills a first responder; civil penalties up to $10,000 can also apply in fatal incidents.
Highway Danger by the Numbers
Statewide traffic safety data cited by LebTown shows 152 emergency responders have been struck and killed on Pennsylvania roadways over time, including five first responders killed on state highways between 2019 and 2021 alone. Nationally, emergency service workers are struck by passing vehicles at roadside scenes roughly twice a day on average, with 46 roadside responder fatalities recorded across the country in 2020, according to the same report. Struck-by incidents regularly involve distracted, drowsy, or impaired drivers, the report notes, underscoring why advocates pushed for stronger Move Over penalties.
A National Tour Ends With Local Relief
The mortgage payoff arrived as part of Tunnel to Towers' commemorations marking 25 years since the September 11 attacks. The foundation completed a 4.5-month Steel Across America tour that carried a 16,900-pound World Trade Center steel beam over 10,500 miles across 21 states, visiting military bases, firehouses, and national landmarks before delivering mortgage payoffs to 55 families, according to the Johnson City Press. The Smelser family was among them.
Tunnel to Towers was established by the family of FDNY firefighter Stephen Siller, who on September 11, 2001, ran on foot through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel carrying 60 pounds of gear toward the World Trade Center before losing his life, per PR Newswire coverage of the foundation's anniversary announcement. The charity pays off mortgages for first responders who died in the line of duty or from 9/11-related illnesses and left behind young children, and it provides mortgage-free homes to catastrophically injured service members and their families. Frank Siller, the foundation's CEO and chairman, said Tunnel to Towers honors first responders lost on September 11 by supporting families who lost a loved one in the line of duty, according to CBS News Pittsburgh.
For Lynn Smelser and her children, the gesture closes out a chapter that began with an icy highway and a call for help. The mortgage is gone. The bridge bearing Matthew Smelser's name still carries traffic over the Youghiogheny River, a fixed marker of a paramedic who spent his career telling others to stay safe near the road that eventually took his life.
