EMERGENCY VEHICLE
CRASHES IN CARRIAGE PARK, NORTH CAROLINA.
2 FIRST RESPONDERS AND FIREFIGHTER INJURED
A Mountain Home Fire Department vehicle responding to a
wreck in Carriage Park this morning skidded off the road and down an
embankment, sending two emergency responders to area hospitals with
non-life-threatening injuries.
A third firefighter was injured when he fell on ice at
the scene of the accident.
The fire crew was responding to a wreck around 8 a.m. in
which a woman driving a black Kia went off the road and down a steep
embankment, said Trooper S.A. Davis with the North Carolina Highway Patrol. The
fire engine went off the road after it skidded on black ice in a sharp turn,
Davis said. The fire engine also slid down a steep incline and stopped 50 to 70
yards from Bowen Lake, Davis said.
The woman motorist was uninjured, Davis said.
According to a news release from the Henderson County
Sheriff's Office, the injured firefighters were Lt. Matt Brackett, Engineer
Rick Hodge and volunteer Matthew Tweed.
Brackett, 31, was transported to Mission Hospital in
Asheville, where he is in stable condition with a broken collarbone and
internal injuries, the release states.
Hodge, 51, was taken to Pardee Hospital, where he was
treated and released. Engineer David Jones, 39, was also in the fire truck but
was not injured.
Tweed, 25, a five-year volunteer with the Mountain Home
Fire Department, was treated and released from Pardee Hospital.
The amount of damage to the $450,000 fire engine is
currently unknown, stated Chief Hudgins with the Mountain Home Fire &
Rescue Department.
Carriage Park developer Dale Hamlin said he saw the fire
engine go past the intersection of Carriage Park Way and Narrows Run Loop
around 8 a.m. Hamlin said the fog was so thick at that time that he couldn't
see 200 yards across the lake.
