“Sneezing Fit” Blamed For Crash That Kills 1 Amish Woman, Seriously Injures 4 Others

An everyday bodily function is being blamed for a crash which has claimed the life of a 37-year-old Amish woman in Monroe County, Wisconsin. Here’s what happened, via WMTV:

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – One person has died and five others were injured after a driver’s “sneezing fit” caused her to crash into an Amish buggy last week, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday.

The sheriff’s office said it received a 911 call around 3:35 p.m. on Friday reporting a crash on State Hwy 131 between County Highway A and Irondale Avenue in the Township of Tomah.

An investigation into the crash showed the buggy was heading southbound up a hill when a 38-year-old woman from Tomah who was driving a 2025 Volkswagen Atlas hit the buggy from behind.

Officials determined that the driver of the Volkswagen had a “sneezing fit” and hadn’t seen the buggy before the crash.

The people in the buggy, five total, were badly injured. Their ages ranged from an 18-month-old toddler to a 37-year-old woman.

Tragically, the woman did not survive her injuries, passing away while in the hospital. I have seen her described as a mother elsewhere, which is probably a safe assumption. Condolences to her family. No names have been released as to the victims here. Let’s hope they all pull through.

The driver of the Volkswagen was temporarily trapped in the vehicle, taken to hospital, but later released. She would be the sixth injured person.

I’ve never heard of a sneezing fit leading to someone hitting an Amish buggy though I suppose it could happen. Sneezing fit suggests multiple sneezes in rapid succession, which in theory remove a driver’s attention from the road long enough to not see a slow-moving buggy.

It would presumably take as much time as say, adjusting the car’s air conditioner, the given cause of a crash we recently covered in Oklahoma.

This happened in one of Wisconsin’s largest Amish communities, the Tomah-Wilton settlement in Monroe County. Over 1,400 Amish people live in this community founded in 1969.

It’s hard to know what to say here. This is an unusual cause for a crash to say the least, even bordering on “freak occurrence” status, but not implausible. If you’ve driven long enough, you’ve definitely sneezed once or twice while behind the wheel.

It’s not that I’m searching for a “takeaway” to close the post with here, but it does strike me that it might be wise if you’re prone to sneezing attacks to make sure you start dropping your speed when you feel one coming on.

It’s an everyday thing that no one plans for and no one really thinks much about regarding road safety, so it’s hard to fault someone in the same way (or at all) that you would someone texting and driving, or operating under the influence. This appears to have been an accident and not due to negligence (though there is still an investigation ongoing according to one report).

But sneezing is something that can reasonably take a driver’s eyes and focus off the road long enough for a wreck to occur, more so in Amish Country where the presence of slow buggies reduces time to stop. So it’s worth a mention for that at the least.