Four-vehicle crash in Johnson County kills one, injures four

One person died after four vehicles collided north of Solon over the weekend, according to an Iowa State Patrol crash report.

The crash happened at 5:36 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of Highway 1 and 140th Street in Johnson County.

According to the report, a 2015 Jeep Cherokee — driven by Thomas Perkins, 41, of Cedar Rapids — was headed west on 140th and failed to stop at a stop sign before entering Highway 1, the patrol said. At the same time, three cars were passing on Highway 1 — a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado pulling a camper heading north, and a 2018 Toyota RAV4 and a 2011 Honda CRV heading south.

The Jeep crashed into the rear portion of the camper behind the truck, driving through it and then hitting the driver’s side of the Toyota. The Honda was hit by debris sent flying from the camper.

The driver of the Toyota — Usha Mallik, 77, of Iowa City — died at the scene. Four other people were injured, including Perkins, the driver of the Jeep. He was taken to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics by AirCare, according to the report.

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The other injuries were to Samantha Perkins, 34, of Cedar Rapids, Matthew Charles, 46, of Paris, France, and a 1-year-old identified in the report. They were all taken to the hospital by ambulance. The report does not state in which vehicle each injured person was a passenger.

The driver of the pickup truck — Randy Rouse, 63, of Mechanicsville — and the driver of the Honda — Becky Lu, 22, of Bettendorf — were not injured.

Mallik was a professor emeritus in the physics department at the University of Iowa. She once worked with a team to help build a sub-detector at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, in Switzerland, and was an expert in particle physics.

In 2020, she was awarded the Michael J. Brody Award for faculty excellence in service by the university. Her professional biography posted online with the award announcement states that she was committed to mentoring students and helping connect women and immigrants to scientific communities.

“She is a passionate advocate for public engagement, the promotion of science, and has been a leader in efforts to bring engaging science programs to K-12 students and their families,” the biography reads.

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