Photo by Howard Owens.
Dispatchers are checking on the availability of Mercy Flight after receiving a report of a possible serious injury accident in the area of 6218 Alleghany Road, Alabama.
Alabama Fire and Mercy EMS dispatched.
UPDATE 5:10 p.m. Joanne Beck: Mercy Flight responding, ETA 9 minutes.
UPDATE 5:37 p.m. Joanne Beck: Mercy Flight en route to Erie County Medical Center. Howard Owens is at the scene.
UPDATE 6:32 p.m. Joanne Beck:
In a one-vehicle accident, considered to be one of those “freak” occurrences when not wearing a seat belt actually may have saved the driver’s life. The driver was ejected from his Jeep early Monday evening and is expected to survive, said Genesee County Sheriff’s Sergeant Andrew Hale.
The 39-year-old driver was flown by Mercy Flight to Erie County Medical Center with serious injuries.
Hale said the vehicle was heading northbound on Route 63 towards Medina at approximately 4:50 p.m., where there was some road construction, when, for “some unknown reason,” the driver drove through road-closed construction signs.
“It’s out of the Alabama area here right on the county line, at which point it blew through some construction signs here, and overcorrected and went off the shoulder of the roadway. The construction crews are doing work in the area,” he said. “So from our preliminary investigation, we determined this vehicle rolled at least two times, possibly a third. And the individual was not wearing his seatbelt. And that's ultimately what probably led to him surviving the motor vehicle crash. Had he been wearing a seatbelt, he would have been probably trapped and crushed by the rolling of the Jeep. So, in this instance, it appears that being ejected from the vehicle is what ultimately saved him.”
Hale confirmed that the driver was conscious and alert when responders found him and was able to “talk briefly.”
“But he did have severe injuries,” Hale said.
He did not suspect that alcohol was involved in the accident, he said, but added there's no way of telling if drugs were involved at this point.
There will be an investigation as to why the driver went through the construction signs because “at this time, we don’t have an answer as to why he did that,” Hale said.
“We’ll definitely follow up,” Hale said. He’s got some things he’s got to tend to for right now, but when the time comes, we’ll probably ask him those most important questions.”
There was an off-duty volunteer fireman who lives just up the road who heard the accident and and, along with his father, also responded to the scene.
It is still being determined at what point the driver was ejected from the vehicle, Hale said. He was just lucky in this case that he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, though Hale encourages everyone to wear one.
“Absolutely wear a seatbelt. You know, 99 percent of the time, it will only benefit you and help save your life and help save others’ lives,” he said. This was just one of those rare freak accidents, and in this case, it played to his benefit.”
The driver’s fiancee had been notified of the accident, Hale said. The driver's name has not yet been released.
