Second person dies following car crash into hospital entrance

BROCKTON, Mass. --A second hospital employee has died from injuries sustained when a 76-year-old breast cancer patient crashed her car into an entrance at Brockton Hospital, authorities said Tuesday.

A car driven by Jane Berghold plowed through the entrance to the hospital's Radiation Therapy Unit on Monday afternoon. Susan Plante, 60, of East Bridgewater died that night at a Boston hospital, according to the Plymouth district attorney's office.

Dr. Mark Vasa, chief of radiation therapy, also was struck and died at the scene. Witnesses say he was trying to push people out of the way when he was hit. Two others were injured.

Plante, who had worked at the hospital for 20 years, was the radiation therapy center's secretary, hospital spokesman Rob Brogna said.

"Susan was a loving wife, mother, grandmother, and friend," her family said in a statement released by the hospital. "She offered friendship and love to everyone who came into her life, including the many patients she worked with every day."

Berghold said she was shaken and sick to her stomach about the accident.

"I don't know what happened. I don't recall much of anything. It all happened too fast," she told The Enterprise of Brockton.

She said she was diagnosed in April with breast cancer and was headed to the hospital's radiation therapy center for a consultation.

The car's brakes, which had recently been worked on, appeared to fail, she said.

"I had gone in and I had to make a right turn, then I had to make a left turn, it was when I went to brake that the car just didn't stop," Berghold said.

Police are investigating whether mechanical failure or driver error was to blame for the accident. Berghold has not been charged.

The radiation unit was expected to reopen Wednesday, with Vasa's patients reassigned to other doctors, Brogna said.

The hospital also was planning a memorial service for Vasa and Plante.