Lisa Marchesoni
Posted: Friday, January 1, 2010 12:13 pm

Rainy weather was blamed for the traffic death of a woman early Thursday on Interstate 24, a state trooper said.

Driver Hasaya Chansuthus, 25, of Nashville, died about 2:30 a.m. when her Chevrolet Cobalt crashed into a pine tree head-on off the interstate westbound toward Nashville between the Almaville Road and state Route 840 exits, said Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper Michael Marvin.

The rain probably caused Chansuthus to hydroplane and sideswipe a Volkswagen Golf driven by Michael West, 28, of Melbourne, Fla., he said. The impact caused the Volkswagen to spin around and rest in the emergency lane.

West and his passenger suffered minor injuries. Emergency workers extricated Chansuthus from the wreckage. The air bag did not deploy.

Contributing factors to the crash were the weather and her failure to maintain her lane.

Chansuthus was the 31st traffic fatality in 2009 in Rutherford County.