Published: 3/23/2023 4:05:56 PM
Two Keene State College students from Concord were badly injured in a crash with a logging truck early Thursday morning on Route 9 in Stoddard.
The driver, Kelsey Mayer, 18, was traveling westbound on Route 9 at the same time an unloaded logging truck was backing into a nearby logging site, according to New Hampshire State Police.
The logging truck was blocking the westbound travel lane when the crash occurred.
Mayer sustained serious, life-threatening injuries and was transported to Concord Hospital. Her passenger, Allison Yanski, 19, sustained serious, non-life threatening injuries and was transported to Cheshire Medical Center.
The two young women were extricated from the vehicle by emergency personnel, which was an extensive process that took an hour and a half due to the weight of the truck and the position of the vehicle underneath it, according to a press release from the Stoddard Fire Department. A skidder was used to lift the trailer while crews winched the vehicle out.
The operator of the tractor-trailer, Donald Warner, 44, of Antrim, was uninjured.
“Our thoughts, prayers and love are with the students, their families, and all of their friends, as well as anyone else injured in the crash,” said Keene State College president Melinda Treadwell in an email to the college community.
State police first received reports of a serious crash involving a small sedan and a tractor-trailer near a logging site between the junctions of Route 123 North and Route 123 South in Stoddard around 4:45 a.m., police said. Mayer was driving a 2016 Chevy Cruz.
The New Hampshire State Police were assisted by the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Unit, the Stoddard Fire Department, the Keene Fire Department, the Sullivan Fire Department, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation, Diluzio Ambulance and Peterborough Ambulance. The crash remains under investigation by the state police.