Teacher, student killed in separate crashes on Pike

A college student from Gloucester and a math teacher from Chicopee were killed in separate crashes on the Massachusetts Turnpike that occurred within hours of each other early yesterday morning.

Jane Ziergiebel, 23, a Gloucester native and a student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, was driving her father's 1990 Mazda Miata westbound on the Pike when she crashed just before 1 a.m. in Palmer.

About 4 hours later, Christine (Myers) DoCarmo, 31, of Chicopee was driving a 2004 Ford sport utility vehicle eastbound on the Pike when she crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer in Chicopee, just east of Exit 5, State Police said.

Ziergiebel's father, John, said she was driving to meet a friend and ran into a rainstorm. She lost control of the Miata while driving in the left lane and then crashed into the guardrail in the median just before Exit 8. She was pronounced dead at the scene. State Police said she was not wearing her seat belt.

Her parents said she devoted herself to helping others, volunteering as a tutor at one high school and as a coach at another.

"She was one of those kids that just looked out for everybody," John Ziergiebel said.

After initially studying nursing, Jane Ziergiebel switched her focus to biology. Recently, she decided she wanted to become a teacher, and spent the past few months volunteering as a Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity tutor at Marblehead High School.

"She started and she just loved it. She loved working with kids from Boston," her father said.

She graduated from Gloucester High School, where she played field hockey. Her father said that after they attended a field hockey game between Marlborough and Gloucester high schools recently, his daughter said she wanted to help her former team improve. So she volunteered as a coach.

"She was a gift from God. She was happy and successful and fulfilled," John Ziergiebel said.

DoCarmo was a teacher and head of the math department at Chicopee High School. She was also a graduate of the school and had played on the basketball team.

"She was very dedicated to her job," said her sister, Marilyn Myers.

"She always loved math. She was so smart. She was the most fun and the best sister."

Myers said DoCarmo was also dedicated to her 5-year-old son, Hunter.

"He loved her so much," she said.

"They were like two peas in a pod. She was a wonderful mother."

School officials said DoCarmo often stayed late at school to provide extra help to students or to give support to other faculty members.

"We stayed a little late on Friday afternoon because we had a meeting with a new math teacher we hired," said Roland R. Joyal Jr., principal of the high school.

"She gave him new books, a welcome pack, and a T-shirt . . . She was a really great teacher and a caring person who always pushed her students."

DoCarmo crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer that was parked in the breakdown lane at about 5:20 a.m., State Police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the tractor-trailer, Ricky J. Thomas, 42, of Springfield, was uninjured, according to State Police.

Though there was inclement weather at the time of the crashes, police have not determined that to be a cause. The crashes closed down portions of the Pike for about three hours.