50-year-old woman dies after East Chicago crash

A 50-year-old woman died early Monday, a day after she was involved in a crash in northwest Indiana.

Officers responded to the crash about 10:45 a.m. Sunday in the southbound lanes of Cline Avenue just north of Gary Avenue in unincorporated East Chicago, Indiana, the Lake County sheriff’s office said.

A 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer traveling south on Cline Avenue struck Darlene Thiel’s Vento moped, the sheriff’s office said. Thiel, of Portage, Indiana, was not wearing a helmet and suffered injuries to her head and face.

She was taken to Methodist Hopsital’s Northlake Campus in Gary, Indiana, and then flow by helicopter to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she died at 12:28 a.m., authorities said.

An autopsy Monday found she died of multiple blunt force injuries from a motor vehicle collision, and her death was ruled an accident, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

The crash was under investigation by the Lake County Police Traffic Reconstruction Unit.