EMT dies just after aiding at 1st crash

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
By NANCY H. GONTER and DIANE LEDERMAN

Staff writers

AMHERST - Early Sunday morning, Bradley N. Skikne was traveling along Route 2 in Athol when he came across a three-car accident.
The 22-year-old University of Massachusetts student from Middleton, who was also an emergency medical technician, stopped to help until an ambulance and the state police arrived.
Later that morning the state police, tracking the license plate on Skikne's car, called his home to thank him for his help, said Rabbi Simcha Levenberg who knew Skikne since 2004 when he became program director of Chabad House at UMass.
Police didn't know that a half hour after helping on the scene, Skikne was involved in a one-car accident in which he was killed. Skikne was driving west on Amherst Road in Pelham when he apparently lost control of his 2004 Toyota Matrix, state police said. His car, police said, went off the side of the road, up an embankment, then rolled back onto the road.
The cause of the accident is under investigation, police said.
Skikne, who was not wearing a safety belt, was ejected from the car. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The road was closed for four hours.
But helping others was the kind of man Skikne was, Levenberg said.
"It was very eerie (getting that call). But that was Bradley; he was always about helping other people."
Skikne was an EMT at University Health Services and had served in the same capacity in Acton, Levenberg said.
An Orthodox Jew, Skikne was also deeply connected to his religious faith and the Chabad house. The house rents rooms and apartments and offers all kinds of activities and events to Jews and the community at large. "He initially would come every Friday night for Sabbath."
He kept kosher and he and Levenberg led a trip to Israel for 10 days in the summer of 2005. But Skikne stayed on for two more weeks then took a semester off from UMass so he could study at a Jewish school in New York City, Levenberg said.
A biochemistry major, he would have graduated in 2007. He was thinking about becoming a dentist, Levenberg said.
"He wanted to have high quality of life" and he wanted time to spend with his family, the rabbi said. "He had a very large extended family and he was a big part of our family," he said.
"He was also an open, friendly person. He had a lot of friends." The community is crushed "by his tragic death," Levenberg said.
He said there was a caravan of seven vehicles who attended Skikne's funeral in Danvers yesterday.
In the accident in Athol, state police said that Steven P. Harte, 29, of Easton, was driving on Route 2 east when his car crossed the center lane and hit the car driven by Frank W. Wozniak, 86, of Dracut, head on, state police said.
Wozniak was taken to Athol Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Harte was taken to the hospital, then taken by helicopter to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.
Harte was arrested at UMass Memorial on charges of motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence of alcohol, motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence of alcohol and with recklessness and failure to stay within marked lanes, police said.
After the accident, Route 2 was closed for two hours and traffic was diverted through a truck weighing station on Route 2.
Nancy Gonter can be reached at ngonter@repub.com Diane Lederman can be reached at dlederman@repub.com

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