Widow asks for guardrails at fatal crash site of man last seen in Crystal Lake

The widow of a Wisconsin man who died in a crash last month in Rosemont is now pushing Illinois state and federal officials to install guardrails on the tollway ramp where the accident occurred.

Benjamin Oberto, 45, of New Berlin, Wisconsin, was found dead in his overturned vehicle in Willow Creek on Nov. 15. The location – at the bottom of an embankment near the curve of the eastbound Interstate 90 ramp to northbound Interstate 294 – is the same spot where other vehicles have crashed after running off the edge of the ramp, Rosemont officials confirmed.

“I don’t know if this guardrail would have saved my husband’s life,” said Laura Leatherberry, Oberto’s wife, who penned letters to about a dozen agencies and politicians. “I hope it would have. I think it might have. I’ll never know that for sure. But I know I can help save other people’s lives.”

Oberto, a salesman for a New York City-based wine distributor, was returning from a business dinner at 1776 Restaurant in Crystal Lake the evening of Nov. 13. He took country roads through Wisconsin and Illinois to get there, but Leatherberry believes he decided to take the tollways back home to avoid the steep and winding backroads at night. The weather also was bad that night, she said.

Oberto called his wife about 6 p.m. to say he was still at the restaurant and planned to be home by bedtime. When Leatherberry called about 10 p.m. and the call went straight to voicemail, she said she knew something was wrong.

Police used security video footage to determine he left the restaurant about 9 p.m., and his iPass account shows his Subaru Impreza went through the Elgin toll booth at 9:27 p.m. His cellphone was last pinged in the Rosemont area at 9:47 p.m.

It wasn’t until almost two days later – on Nov. 15 – that divers found Oberto inside the partially submerged vehicle.

Despite her loss, Leatherberry almost immediately started researching old news clippings about other crashes near the tollway ramp – including when a Jeep Wagoneer SUV carrying nine people drove off the ramp and landed upright in the creek on June 7 – and reaching out to public officials.

She said a properly designed and strategically placed guardrail, combined with adequate signage indicating a sharp turn, could prevent the future loss of life. There are guardrails further up the ramp, and Google Street View images show damaged guardrails in a 2022 photo and guardrails that were previously there in 2015, Leatherberry said.

Especially with winter weather approaching, the lack of protective barriers at a high-speed, high-traffic junction creates unnecessary risks for drivers, she said.

“[Ben] was missing, and we had this unfortunate outcome, but I don’t think it needs to end here,” Leatherberry said. “There’s more we can do.”

Family and friends joined her letter-writing campaign, which so far has included correspondence to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Gov. JB Pritzker, the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Illinois Tollway – the agency that ultimately has jurisdiction over that portion of the road.

Dan Rozek, a Tollway spokesman, confirmed Monday that the agency has received letters regarding the death of Oberto, and expressed condolences to his family.

“The Tollway is reviewing the incident location and will take any appropriate action,” Rozek said.

Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens, who also is a Republican state representative for the area, said he plans to send the Tollway a letter this week – citing Oberto’s death and other accidents in the past – to “make this a safer roadway [so that] nothing like this happens again.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20241202/news/more-we-can-do-widow-asks-for-guardrails-at-tollway-ramp-in-rosemont-where-husband-died/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article%20column&utm_campaign=12%2F03%2F2024