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Police: Montgomery woman critically injured in crash

PHILIP A. HOLMES/Sun-Gazette State police were looking into the possibility that brake failure may have been a factor in causing this tractor-trailer truck to crash at routes 15 and 54 in Clinton Township late Saturday morning. The rig and a car collided before the truck crashed into two vehicles in car dealership lot. Both drivers were transported to hospitals.

PHILIP A. HOLMES/Sun-Gazette State police were looking into the possibility that brake failure may have been a factor in causing this tractor-trailer truck to crash at routes 15 and 54 in Clinton Township late Saturday morning. The rig and a car collided before the truck crashed into two vehicles in car dealership lot.  Both drivers were transported to hospitals.

MONTGOMERY — A woman was critically injured when her car and a tractor-trailer collided at the intersection of routes 15 and 54 in Clinton Township about 11:30 a.m. Saturday, closing the southbound lanes of Route 15 for nearly five hours, state police said.

The identities of the drivers were not released Saturday night.

The driver of the car, which was a Mazda 3, was from the Montgomery area, police said. She was in cardiac arrest when emergency responders reached the scene. They immediately began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her. She was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville.

The driver of the truck, a woman, believed to be in her 30s from Ontario, Canada, was taken by ambulance to the UPMC Susquehanna Williamsport Regional Medical Center. There was no information available about her condition either.

Police were looking into the possibility that the truck’s brakes may have failed as the driver was descending a hill.

“I just finished up with a customer. I happened to be looking out the window when I heard a large boom and then saw all this dirt flying,” said a clerk in a business at the intersection, said. She did not identity herself and she asked the business not be identified.

“I saw smoke coming out from under the truck’s hood. I quickly grabbed the phone and called 911. They asked me if anyone was hurt and I told them ‘There is a tractor-trailer involved, you better send someone.’ “

After the impact with the car, the truck crashed into the lot of A-1 Wheels and Deals Auto Sales, damaging two parked vehicles that were for sale.

Volunteer firefighters from Clinton and Washington townships were dispatched to the scene.

Joseph Winters, assistant fire chief for Clinton Township, said the tractor-trailer was hauling concrete walls. Two of the walls on the truck’s passenger side crashed to the ground.

He said the smoke the 911 caller saw coming from under the truck’s hood actually was steam from a broken radiator hose.

Initial reports indicated that the woman driving the car was traveling west on Route 54, heading toward Elimsport when the crash occurred, but no official report had yet been issued.

While northbound traffic was able to continue, all southbound traffic was detoured around the crash either onto Route 54 or Elimsport Road until 4:15 p.m. The state Department of Transportation assisted with the detour.

As a wet snow began falling about 4:30 p.m., making area roads very sluggish and slippery, the county’s 911 center began receiving additional reports of crashes, including a single-vehicle crash in which an SUV crashed into a guardrail on Route 118, 2 miles west of Hughesville, sending two women to the Muncy Valley Hospital to be treated for minor injuries about 6 p.m.

In another crash, this one on Route 654 near Valley Road in Bastress Township, both drivers involved in a two-vehicle rear-end crash declined treatment, one fire officer said, adding that road condition were very icy.

A section of Sugar Camp Road in Eldred and Gamble townships was closed due to multiple crashes about 7:45 p.m. About 15 minutes later, Hughesville firefighters were dispatched to a possible injury crash in the 6200 block of Route 220 in Wolf Township.

A motorist spun out of control and went down over an embankment on Route 220 near the Jersey Shore Thomas Street interchange about 9:30 p.m. At about the same time, Hepburn Township volunteer firefighters were investigating a crash near their firehouse on Route 973 East.

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