Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN — The driver of a car that crashed about 5 p.m. Thursday in the westbound lanes of the Madison Avenue Expressway near the Crescent Street exit has died, the Youngstown Police Department has confirmed.

Lt. Robert Gentile, head of the police department’s accident investigation unit, said the driver died after he was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital for injuries sustained in the single-vehicle crash.

A portion of the highway was closed while police investigated.

Gentile said drugs and alcohol are not considered to be a factor pending a toxicology report.

The county had four fatal crashes so far this year as of last week, but the fifth one took place Wednesday on the Ohio Turnpike eastbound in Springfield Township.

Dennis Tomaino, 16, of Columbiana died in the 8:17 p.m., single-vehicle crash, according to a news release. Tomaino’s vehicle went off the right side of the road and struck a guardrail, went back across the lanes, across the grassy median, ejecting the driver through the sunroof.

The driver was not wearing a safety belt at the time of the crash. Alcohol did not appear to be a factor in the crash, the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Hiram Post stated in a press release. That crash remains under investigation.

Mahoning County had 10 fatal crashes in all of 2023.

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