MANCHESTER –– Firefighters spent around an hour Tuesday morning extricating a seriously injured occupant from a van that crashed off I-93 during heavy rain, according to Manchester authorities.
The crash happened just north of the I-293 junction around 6:50 a.m., where officials found the van down an embankment in a swampy area.
The vehicle had collided with a large tree, causing significant impact damage to the front passenger’s side and trapping one of the van’s occupants.
Additional AMR ambulances were dispatched to the scene as a total of four people sustained injuries.
Three of these individuals were able to free themselves from the wreckage and appeared to have non-life-threatening injuries, according to first responders.
For the trapped passenger, however, Manchester firefighters requested a paramedic for pain management. The individual appeared to have a seriously broken femur.
The NH Department of Transportation helped manage the scene, setting up arrow board trucks to divert traffic around the closed right lane. Firefighters also requested additional apparatus equipped with battery-operated extrication tools to reach the trapped occupant.
Approximately an hour after the initial response, the person was freed and rushed to Elliot Hospital Trauma Center, where a trauma alert had been activated.
Witnesses at the scene told state police that heavy downpours likely caused the van to hydroplane off the right side of the interstate.
Preliminary investigations suggest that the driver may have been operating at an inappropriate speed for the weather conditions.
State police are continuing to investigate the accident as four people were transported from the scene.
