Two car crashes late Saturday in Ithaca sent five people to the hospital and one man — suspected of drunk driving — to jail.
At around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, a car struck a parked vehicle and a motorcycle, flipped over and damaged a house and a utility pole on the 700 block of Elmira Road. Wires from the pole fell over across Route 13, forcing emergency responders to shut down the road, according to the Ithaca Fire Department.
While rescuers removed the vehicle’s passengers and transported two people who were injured to Cayuga Medical Center, responders determined the crash had caused structural, electrical and gas main damage to the house. They called in Ithaca Town Code Enforcement officials to check the house and asked a crew from Verizon to inspect the downed wires.
Emergency responses — which IFD said were already “spread out and running thin” — were soon complicated when a car plowed into vehicles stopped at Route 13 and Seven Mile drive, according to the IFD. Rescuers helped passengers out of their cars and transported two more injured people to Cayuga Medical Center. While emergency responders worked, an Ithaca firefighter suffered chest pains, becoming the fifth person in a matter of hours to be rushed to the hospital.
Utility crews continued working Sunday to clear Route 13 of the downed wires. As of 5 p.m., the roadway had been reopened.
New York State police have detained the driver of the second vehicle under suspicion that he was drunk driving.
Akane Otani is the managing editor of The Sun. You can email her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/akaneotani.
Original Author: Akane Otani