Double Fatal MVA with Severe Entrapment
For nearly 20 years, she would pull up in her Buick to bring Dennis back to their Rockland home. But Thursday, she didn’t show up.
She was on her way when she attempted a left turn onto Market Street in Rockland. As she did, she was struck by a car driven by a 23-year-old Weymouth woman. Both drivers were killed. The crash took place just feet from Archibald’s home on Damon Road.
“You think of all the times that you walked around that corner,” said Bruce Archibald of Holbrook, one of Dorothy’s three children, who came to stay with Dennis overnight Thursday. “Whoever knew that she would be killed right there, on the corner of her own street. It’s hard to really realize what has happened.”
Disbelief was also palpable on Charles Street in Weymouth, where Gina LaRocco’s family and friends mourned the loss of the 2004 Weymouth High School graduate.
Her older brother greeted mourners with prolonged hugs at the door Thursday. He declined to comment.
“It’s not a good time,” he said.
Police officers and firefighters from Rockland, Abington and Hanover worked for an hour to extract Archibald and Larocco from their cars, which police described as “mangled.”
Rockland Police Chief John Llewellyn said LaRocco was conscious at the time rescuers arrived, but slowly slipped away as a steering column she was pinned beneath was removed. She and Archibald were pronounced dead at South Shore Hospital.
LaRocco was traveling west towards Hanover when the accident occurred around 12:45 p.m.
LaRocco lived in a neighborhood made up in large part of family members. Longtime family friend Michael Molisse said LaRocco’s grandmother and aunt live on the same street.
“She comes from a great family, a very close-knit family,” Molisse said. “She’s such a sweet, sweet girl. I’m sure that the family is just devastated, because she was everything to them.”
A Rockland police reconstruction team is investigating the crash. The cause had not been determined Thursday. There appeared to be no skid marks or damaged property near the intersection where the crash took place.
Bruce Archibald said his mother was an avid churchgoer and exerciser. She and her late husband moved to Rockland in 1979 from Connecticut. Her son Dennis had always lived with her.
She was the eldest member of the family, Bruce said, so he didn’t expect to be shocked when the inevitable call came that she had passed. But he was when he learned a 23-year-old had died as well.
“When an elderly person’s getting older, sometimes you wonder when something is going to happen,” he said. “But with a young kid? Oh my god, you know? That was almost more shocking.”
