Staff Writer
WILLIAMSBURG - An 84-year-old Williamsburg woman crashed her car into a utility pole on Main Street, causing active power lines to fall on a tractor-trailer traveling behind her, police said, and creating long delays in afternoon traffic through the center of town Tuesday.
According to Police Chief John W. Cotton, at 3:15 p.m., local firefighters and police officers responded to the area of 22 Main St., near Lashway Lumber, for a report that a woman's 2001 station wagon had struck and downed a utility pole and that the pole had landed on a tractor-trailer truck following behind her. The broken pole hit the side of the trailer and lodged itself there, Cotton said in an email.
The driver, Charlotte P. Otis, of Village Hill Road, was transported by Highland Ambulance to Cooley Dickinson Hospital. She was treated there and then was transferred in good condition to another facility, according to a hospital spokeswoman late Tuesday night. The spokeswoman declined to say where Otis was sent.
In describing the accident, Cotton said, "The wires from the pole were on the truck and, according to National Grid, they carried 13,000 volts when active. So we had to close the road down until crews could stabilize the wires and get them off of the truck."
Firefighters at the scene redirected traffic down High Street and South Main Street, and backups caused by the accident stretched several miles down Main Street, at one point reaching as far as Bread Euphoria.
"We had to close the roads to give the electric crews a chance to stabilize the poles," Fire Chief Donald Lawton said.
The downed pole was repaired by National Grid crews, Cotton said, and traffic through the center of town was moving normally shortly after 5 p.m.
Cotton said the cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Owen Boss can be reached at oboss@gazettenet.com.
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