accident

There is an accident report with minor injuries on Ledge Road west of White Road, Alabama.

There have been reports of it being a car vs. tree and car vs. deer accident.

Alabama fire and Mercy EMS responding.

UPDATE 9:27 p.m.: Reportedly, driver swerved to miss a deer and struck a tree.

A motor-vehicle accident has been reported in the area of 56 River St., Batavia.

Two vehicles involved with air bag deployment. An elderly woman has a complaint of nose pain.

Batavia fire and Mercy EMS responding.

A motor vehicle accident with injuries is reported on Route 77, just south of Herkimer Road.

Darien fire and ambulance dispatched.

UPDATE 4:48 p.m.: It's a car/deer accident at 1784 Route 77.

UPDATE 5:10 p.m.: Accident victim signs off on medical treatment. All Darien units returning.

A motor-vehicle accident with minor injuries is reported at 6081 Byron Elba Road, east of Byron Road. A utility pole there is snapped in half. South Byron Fire Company is responding.

UPDATE 6:17 p.m.: National Grid is contacted because the pole presents a hazard. No ETA given.

UPDATE 6:26 p.m.: National Grid has a 10-minute ETA. A tow will respond to remove the damaged vehicle(s) after National Grid clears the pole/wires.

A motor-vehicle accident with minor injuries is reported at 853 Genesee St. in Corfu. Corfu Fire Department and Mercy medics are responding. Law enforcement is on scene.

UPDATE 4:33 p.m.: Three people are signs-offs and one person will likely be transported to a hospital.

A one-car rollover accident has reported in the area of 6485 Thwing Road, Stafford.

Unknown injuries at this time.

A homeowner in the area spotted the vehicle but did not see the accident. It's not known at this time if there are any occupants in the vehicle.

Stafford fire along with Mercy EMS dispatched.

UPDATE 8:14 a.m.: The resident reports nobody is in the vehicle. The resident believes that accident happened within the past 30 minutes, but did not see it. Mercy EMS to continue non-emergency until a Stafford chief arrives on scene to further assess the situation.

UPDATE 8:16 a.m.: The victim has been located and has a minor hand injury.

UPDATE 8:37 a.m.: Stafford fire back in service.

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A car accident is reported on Route 5, in front of the Save-A-Lot store in Le Roy. The roadway is being closed in both directions by fire police. Le Roy fire and ambulance are responding.

Eastbound traffic is closed at Gilbert Street; westbound at Lake Street. The store is at 15 W. Main St. (Route 5).

UPDATE 5:40 p.m.: Two patients are being transported by Le Roy to Strong Memorial Hospital.

UPDATE 5:43 p.m.: Westbound Route 5 is being opened.

UPDATE 6 p.m.: Eastbound is reopened and traffic police are back in service along with the fire department.

A woman at Walmart says a car ran over her foot while she was in the parking lot.

Initially, she refused an ambulance response, but her father, at another location with a police officer, insisted that an ambulance respond to Walmart.

The suspect vehicle has apparently been located on Route 63.

Drivers on Perry Road in Pavilion should use extra caution as there is a car / deer accident at 10163 Perry Road and the vehicle is now without lights and blocking the roadway. Law enforcement is responding.

UPDATE 7:12 p.m.: An officer on scene says the location is south of Route 20.

A two-car accident with air-bag deployment is reported in front of the Red Osier restaurant in Stafford. A female is complaining of wrist and facial pain. Stafford Fire Department and Mercy EMS are responding. The restaurant is located at 6492 E. Main St. Road.

As near as investigators can conclude, 25-year-old Quayshawn D. Smith was tired, drunk and driving a car with broken suspension April 22 when his 1997 white Buick Century crossed the center yellow line on Lewiston Road and smashed head-on into a minivan driven by a 74-year-old Oakfield resident.

Both Smith, of Mill Street, Medina, and Rosemary Calla, of South Main Street, were dead before the first emergency responders arrived.

While Sheriff's Office investigators draw no conclusions in a recently completed final report on the accident, the three proximate probable causes for the accident are contained in witness statements, observations by investigators and a medical examiner's report.

The ME's report took many months to complete, which is why the investigation wasn't closed until a week or so ago.

According to the Monroe County ME, Smith's BAC was between .08 and .12 (depending on whether the urine or blood sample is used) at the time of the crash. He also had marijuana in his system.

Two people from Geneseo told investigators that they had been with Smith the night before the accident drinking, first at local bars and later at an after-hours party at a residence.

Before going to the house party, Smith gave his car keys to a friend so he wouldn't drive, according to a statement. 

Another more recent acquaintance in his statement said he obtained the keys prior to the party, but when he thought he was going to walk home, gave them to Smith's friend.

Smith's friend denied having the keys at the party.

The acquaintance ended up staying at the party and then got a ride home from Smith. Smith's friend was also a passenger in the car.

According to the acquaintance's statement, Smith was weaving while driving the two passengers back to the friend's house, but he attributed the weaving to Smith being tired, not drunk.

Back at the house, the three men were going to get something to eat, but nothing in the house appealed to them, so Smith decided to leave. Smith's friend offered him a place to sleep, but Smith declined and said he was OK to drive.

The friend said he didn't consider Smith drunk, just tired.

At 6:10 a.m., another Geneseo resident who was driving to Clarence reportedly saw a white sedan pulled over on Route 63 south of the Peoria Curve. The driver observed a man in dark clothing with a hoodie pulled over the side of his head and walking back toward the driver's side door as the witness passed.

There's no evidence this was the same white sedan driven by Smith, however, the Geneseo resident said the white sedan eventually caught up with him (he said he was driving 55 mph) and was weaving in the roadway, sometimes acting as if he wanted to pass, even over a double-yellow line, and the swerving back into the shoulder of the road.

At Route 20 and Route 63, the two cars went separate ways, with the white sedan continuing northbound on Route 63. The Geneseo resident said he intentionally delayed his left turn onto Route 20 so he could observe the driver of the white sedan, whom he described as a black male.

The Geneseo resident never called police until after he learned of a white sedan being invovlved in a double-fatal accident on Route 63.

The accident was reported at 6;46 a.m. in the area of 7936 Lewiston Road, Batavia.

Smith's car crossed the double-yellow line and the two cars hit head-on with the impact area being about 3/4 of the front of each vehicle.

The black box (EDR, for electronic data recorder) in the Buick indicated that Smith wasn't wearing a seat belt, but emergency responders all reported finding Smith strapped in by both a lap belt and shoulder harness. Sgt. William Scott who prepared the reported concluded the EDR reading was in error on that point.

The EDR recorded the Buick's speed at 52 mph just prior to impact.

Scott could not recover the data from the 2002 Mazda minivan driven by Calla because its software was incompatible with the software used by both the Sheriff's Office and State Police.

Using mathematical calculations, Scott concluded Calla's speed just prior to impact was 39.93 mph.

"It is possible that the driver's age or a recognition of an impending collision could have allowed the driver of the Mazda to reduce speed just prior to impact," Scott wrote in his report.

While Smith was over the legal limit for blood alcohol content at the time of the crash, and had been up all night, according to witnesses, the suspension on his car was also damaged.

It had a broken left rear trailing arm. It's the piece that connects the axle to the frame and keeps the axle from moving forward and backward.

Rust on the part indicates it had been broken many months, or longer, prior to the accident and that Smith had been driving the Buick in that condition for some time.

It was probably moving backward and forward two to three inches, according to Scott's report.

"This would have been enough to give the feeling that the vehicle's rear end was steering the car to one side or the other," Scott wrote.

Investigator William Ferrando obtained Smith's mobile phone from the vehicle and concluded Smith had been neither making a phone call nor texting prior to the accident.

The phone proved crucial to making a notification to a member of Smith's family.

While Smith was living in Medina at the time of the crash, not long before he lived in Brooklyn and his neighbors didn't know how to contact his family.

Ferrando was able to call Smith's aunt using Smith's contact list on the phone. The aunt at first didn't believe Ferrando was with law enforcement because Smith had once pulled a similar prank on her. The aunt told Ferrando that Smith's mother was deceased and she didn't know how to contact his father.

Smith had been enrolled in a carpentry program in Medina, but was employed at Brunner International at the time of the accident.

One of Calla's daughters was notified of her mother's passing that Sunday morning shortly after the accident by a uniformed deputy who went to her house in Oakfield.

A two-car accident with a minor injury is reported at Bethany Center and Ellicott Streets roads. Stafford fire and Mercy EMS are responding. A person is complaining of neck pain.

UPDATE 7:01 p.m.: Stafford is back in service.

UPDATE 7:09 p.m.: A 31-year-old female is being taken to UMMC with complaints of back, shoulder and neck pain.

A woman and two children reportedly suffered minor injuries in a two-car accident in the area of 8294 Slusser Road, Batavia.

East Pembroke fire and Mercy EMS dispatched.

UPDATE 3:03 p.m.: Fire police requested to the scene.

UPDATE 3:42 p.m.: Two patients being transported to UMMC. Sounds like very minor injuries, if any.

A car accident is reported at East Main and Bank streets in Batavia. One person has chest pain as a result. Law enforcement is on scene and Mercy medics are responding.

UPDATE 10:27 a.m.: Two cars were involved, and one of them traveled to Center Street afterward where medics took the patient to UMMC. City fire also responded and is now back in quarters. A flatbed tow is called for the disabled vehicle at the initial crash site.

A car is off the road in a one-car accident on Route 20 just east of Asbury Road, Pavilion.

Pavilion fire and Mercy EMS dispatched.

UPDATE 9:06 a.m.: The patient has reportedly lost consciousness.

UPDATE 9:39 a.m.: Pavilion fire back in service.

Dispatchers have received reports of accidents involving at least five cars on Route 19 on the Thruway overpass in Le Roy.

DOT crews have been dispatched to deal with possible slickness on the roadway.

So far, no reports of injuries.

UPDATE 6:52 p.m.: There are at least 10 cars involved. Le Roy fire and Le Roy ambulance dispatched. Possible minor injuries. Responders warned to use caution upon approach, roads are very slippery.

UPDATE 6:55 p.m.: A Le Roy responder asks dispatch to contact DPW. The Clay Street bridge is covered with ice, he says.

UPDATE 6:59 p.m.: Medic on scene reports the northbound lane of Route 19 is blocked.

UPDATE 7:16 p.m.: A second ambulance, a Mercy rig, requested to the scene.

UPDATE 8:33 p.m.: Road salted and Route 19 is reopened.

An accident blocking both westbound lanes of the Thruway has been reported in the area of mile marker 390.2.

No word on injuries.

Town of Batavia Fire Department dispatched.

UPDATE 2:44 p.m.: The location is right by the toll booth overpass, just east of Route 98. Three cars are involved. It may be that only one lane is blocked.

UPDATE 2:50 p.m.: Mercy medics on scene report no injuries. Town of Batavia fire will help troopers with traffic control.

A three-car accident with minor to no injuries is reported on the Thruway near mile marker 396 and in the westbound lane.

East Pembroke fire dispatched. It's the second call in the district for East Pembroke.

Mercy EMS dispatched as a precaution.

UPDATE 1:58 p.m.: The "car that caused it all took off" reports a chief on scene. Two cars involved on scene. No injuries. Town of Batavia Fire Department requested to the Thruway to check the west bound lane. Dispatch is receiving reports of several accidents in the westbound lanes of the Thruway. An East Pembroke chief has been told of another three-car accident "back there" in the median. All available manpower requested to the Thruway.

UPDATED 2:02 p.m.: Confirmed two-car accident at mile marker 294.8.

UPDATE 2:04 p.m.: No injuries in the accident at 294.8. Town of Batavia fire is going back in service.

UPDATE 2:13 p.m.: East Pembroke assignment to the Thruway back in service.

A trailer reportedly came off a truck in the area of North Pembroke Road and Beckwith Road, Batavia, taking down a utility pole and transformer.

East Pembroke fire responding.

No injuries reported at this time.

National Grid has been notified. No ETA at this time.

UPDATE 1:32 p.m.: Road being shut down at Beckwith and Phelps.

UPDATE 1:37 p.m.: Chief asks dispatch to notify National Grid, "we can't get near that trailer." 

UPDATE 1:53 p.m.: National Grid has a 20-minute ETA.

UPDATE 1:56 p.m.: National Grid reports 60 customers without power.

UPDATE 2:08 p.m.: National Grid is on scene.

UPDATE 2:37 p.m.: East Pembroke back in service.

UPDATE: Photo submitted by a reader.

There are two motor-vehicle accidents on the Thruway in the area of mile marker 401. There are no injuries reported for the one in the eastbound lane, which involves a red Jaguar. The one in the westbound lane resulted in a minor injury. Mercy medics are responding along with Pembroke and Indian Falls fire departments.

UPDATE 10:50 a.m.: A second ambulance is requested and assistance for traffic control. The Jag has major front-end damage and is on the bridge over Route 77, which is said to be extremely slick and cars are traveling on it too fast. A third car has slid on the bridge.

UPDATE 10:57 a.m.: The state DOT has salt and maintenance trucks headed to the bridge.

UPDATE 11:14 a.m.: Two patients are being taken to UMMC.

UPDATE 11:22 a.m.: The patients headed to UMMC have minor injuries. One is a 49-year-old female, the other is an 18-year-old male.

UPDATE 11:25 a.m.: Indian Falls is leaving the scene and so is the State Trooper.

UPDATE 11:27 a.m.: Pembroke command calls for an ambulance at the top of the ramp of the Pembroke exit off the Thruway for an accident in which a person has neck and back pain.

UPDATE 11:55 a.m.: The person with neck and back pain is a 42-year-old male who is being taken to UMMC.

UPDATE 11:56 a.m.: The Pembroke assignment is back in service.