Berne woman dies after crash, Westerlo man charged with DWI

WESTERLO — A Berne woman has died from injuries she sustained in a three-vehicle accident in Westerlo on Sunday.
Lisa Sperry, 55, was driving south on Route 401 in a minivan with her two sons — Cade Sperry, 15, and Calvin Sperry, 18 — when Andrew R. Gibson, of Westerlo, who was driving in the opposite direction in a sedan, passed a vehicle in a no-passing zone and sideswiped a motorcyclist before crashing head-on into Sperry’s vehicle, according to state police. 

The two Sperry boys were hospitalized at Albany Medical Center with serious injuries, as was Gibson’s passenger, 31-year-old Lauren E. Carey, of Westerlo. The motorcyclist, Donald Utter, 56, of Rensselaerville, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, as did Gibson; both have been released from Albany Med.  

Gibson, 42, has been charged with driving while intoxicated, Trooper Kerra Burns, of the Troop G Public Information Office, told The Enterprise. 

“The DWI and any pending charges are still part of the open investigation at this time,” Burns said on Tuesday. 

Gibson is scheduled to appear in Westerlo Town Court on June 16.

State police were assisted by the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, the Albany County District Attorney’s Office, the Westerlo Volunteer Fire Company, and LifeNet.

A GoFundMe page has been started for the Sperry family by Hailey Aragona, of Coeymans Hollow. As of Wednesday morning, nearly 200 donors had contributed more than $17,000, with a goal amount of $40,000.

More Hilltowns News

  • The vagaries of New York State’s ability and willingness to involve itself in local affairs cropped up in many Enterprise stories this year, and revealed the gaps in the patchwork system of agencies that are supposed to keep the machine running. 

  • The town of Berne has filed an Article 78 proceeding against Governor Kathy Hochul in an effort to make her appoint someone to the town board, creating a quorum that the board has now lacked for months. 

  • The Rensselaerville Town Board gave a town attorney the go-ahead to draft an agreement with the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region to create a non-endowed fund from which the town can use up to 90 percent of the interest earned off the $830,000 Kuhar Endowment Fund.

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