The driver, a 37-year-old Champaign County man, was taken by CareFlight to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton following the crash reported around 8:45 p.m. along Ohio 41 just outside Springfield.
“One vehicle was traveling southbound on state Route 41, at which time the driver drifted off the right side of the roadway, hit a mailbox, continued through some yards, hit two parked vehicles in a driveway and then crashed and became disabled at that point,” said Sgt. Jason Cadle of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Springfield Post.
Previously reported as a four-vehicle collision, the only moving vehicle belonged to the pickup driver who crashed and rolled. The man had to be cut out of his vehicle, and he had been wearing a seat belt, the sergeant said.
Witnesses at the scene reported to a News Center 7 photographer that they could smell an odor of alcohol and saw drugs and drug paraphernalia outside the wreckage. Cadle said drugs and alcohol are under investigation as possible factors in the crash but did not confirm witness accounts at the scene. The crash remains under investigation.
UPDATE @ 9:55 p.m.
A man was trapped in the wreckage of a four-vehicle crash tonight for about a half hour before he was freed and later flown to Miami Valley Hospital.
There were no other injuries, but the man who was trapped was seriously injured, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Springfield Post.
The crash has shut down Troy Road (Ohio 41) in both directions at the Miller Road intersection in German Twp., which is just outside Springfield and north of the Upper Valley Mall.
FIRST REPORT
A medical helicopter has been called to a crash tonight on Ohio 41 north of the Upper Valley Mall.
The crash was reported around 8:45 p.m., according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
The number of cars and the number of people injured in the crash was not immediately clear.