By Kevin O'Neal

The Indianapolis Star

A Lafayette woman was killed Saturday morning in a head-on crash on Interstate 65 heading home from work in Indianapolis.

Samantha J. Burke, a nurse at Riley Hospital for Children, died at the scene of the crash on I-65, south of Lebanon in Boone County.

The driver of the other vehicle, Mark A. Cabbell, 33, Indianapolis, also died at the scene. Investigators said Cabbell was driving south in the northbound lanes.

Boone County sheriff's deputies said they were trying to determine whether Cabbell was impaired by alcohol.

Toxicology reports will take weeks or months to complete, but deputies said they smelled alcohol in Cabbell's vehicle at the crash scene.

"I believe they could smell it heavily on his person," Boone County Sheriff's Deputy Chris Burcham said.

Burke's violent death was more tragic because it came as she was headed home from work to attend a friend's funeral Saturday, said Olivia Huser, spokeswoman for Clarian Health Services, which operates the hospital.

"Samantha brought joy and comfort to patients, families and co-workers. She was an amazing young woman who touched hundreds of lives in a very short time," Burke's co-workers said in a statement released by the hospital, where she had worked since January.

Investigators said the crash occurred south of the I-65 interchange with Indiana 39, where they believe Cabbell headed south on the northbound ramp and continued to drive the wrong way in the northbound lanes.

It's a standard four-ramp interchange, and all of the ramps are marked with signs to tell drivers they're headed the wrong way, Burcham said.

Cabbell was driving a 2000 Chevrolet Blazer and Burke was driving a 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix, according to the investigators.

Deputies were warned of the wrong-way driver by 911 calls from other motorists, but they didn't have enough time to react before receiving a report of the crash at 3:57 a.m.

The Sheriff's Department issued a statement saying that just 15 seconds passed between the first call received about the wrong-way driver and a second call that a crash had just occurred.

While Burke was known to be headed home from work, deputies were uncertain where Cabbell was headed or where he had been before the crash.