Pregnant woman hurt in Valparaiso crash dies 6 days later

A pregnant woman has died nearly a week after she was injured in a northwest Indiana crash that left four other people hurt.

Emergency crews responded about 2 p.m. Jan. 15 to a two-vehicle crash in the 200 block of West State Road 130 in Valparaiso, Indiana, according to the Porter County Sheriff’s Office. A westbound Dodge Dakota slid sideways into the eastbound lanes and across the median before crashing into a Chevrolet box truck.

The front-seat passenger in the Dodge, 28-year-old Jesse Ruth Dexter of Valparaiso, was taken to Porter Regional Hospital in Valparaiso before being transferred to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, according to the sheriff’s office and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. She was pronounced dead at 1:12 a.m. Sunday. Her child was pronounced dead more than 12 hours later.

The 28-year-old Valparaiso man driving the Dodge was airlifted to South Bend Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana, with serious injuries, the sheriff’s office said. Two back-seat passengers, a 23-year-old woman from De Motte, Indiana, and a 7-year-old girl from Valparaiso, were also taken to Porter Regional to be treated for their injuries.

The driver of the truck, a 25-year-old South Bend man, was taken to St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, Indiana, for complaints of pain, the sheriff’s office said.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation Tuesday, according to the sheriff’s office.