WESTFIELD – City firefighters were dispatched to the 37.5 mile marker of the Massachusetts Turnpike early Saturday morning for a vehicular crash reported by State Police.
A call to the emergency dispatch center at 4:32 a.m. scrambled the ambulance based at the Fire Department’s Southampton Road sub-station as well as Engine 3, which is also based at the sub-station, under the command of Fire Capt. Eric Bishop.
Bishop reports that traffic on the turnpike was light and the weather was rainy when the firefighters arrived to find a vehicle had struck a tree in the median.
Bishop requested that the department’s rescue truck also be dispatched but the rescue truck was recalled after firefighters were able to break open the passenger side door so medics could assess the condition of the single occupant of the vehicle.
State Police report that the operator, Colter Abley, a 20-year-old Middletown, Conn., resident, was killed immediately by the impact.
Troopers report that the vehicle had been operating westbound when Abley lost control of his 2008 Toyota Yaris and it veered off the roadway, striking a tree in the median with the driver’s side of the vehicle.
The crash remains under investigation by the troopers including the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section and the State Police Crime Scene Services Section.
Troopers report that speed was a factor in the crash.
