Sugar Street Accident —

Flipped Sedan Requires Complex Dual Extrications

By Andrew Gorosko

A late night, single-vehicle accident on Thursday, August 4, drew about 20 firefighters to Sugar Street (Route 302), where they performed lengthy, complex extrications to remove two women trapped in an overturned Honda Civic.

Police report that motorist Kaitlyn C. Murphy, 19, of 16 Cobblestone Lane was driving a 1998 Honda Civic sedan eastward on Sugar Street, on a flat straightaway lying to the west of the Meadowbrook Terrace Mobile Home Park, when for some reason, the vehicle climbed guardrailing along the right road shoulder, causing it to roll over onto its roof at about 11:54 pm. The vehicle skidded to a stop on its roof.

The accident occurred about 1,000 feet west of the trailer park.

Also in the vehicle were passengers David Modzelewski, 17, of 8 Patricia Lane, who was in the front seat, and Erica Carino, 19, of 13 Bridge End Farm Lane, who was in the rear seat, police said.

Volunteer ambulance staffers transported all three occupants to Danbury Hospital for treatment of injuries, police said. The accident remains under investigation.

Newtown Hook & Ladder and Dodgingtown firefighters were summoned to the scene to extricate Murphy and Carino, who were trapped upside-down within the Honda. Modzelewski had been able to get out of the overturned auto.

Hook & Ladder Volunteer Fire Company Chief Ray Corbo, who was incident commander, said the incident posed one of the most technically complex extrication situations firefighters have faced in recent memory.

After a lengthy section of Sugar Street was closed to through-traffic, firefighters set up portable lighting equipment to illuminate the dual extrication project.

Due to the precarious positions of the two women within the vehicle, firefighters used large airbags to gradually raise the crumpled sedan above the pavement, Chief Corbo said. As the vehicle slowly was lifted up off the asphalt, firefighters placed large wooden blocks beneath it to stabilize the auto, thus allowing the two women to be removed from it without causing them further injury, he said.

Firefighters extricated one woman about 20 minutes after arriving at the crash, the fire chief said. Removing the second woman from the auto required an additional 38 minutes of work, Chief Corbo said.

Considering the severity of the crash, the two women were very fortunate to have received relatively minor injuries, he said.

A Danbury Hospital spokeswoman said that none of the accident victims were patients in the hospital on the morning of August 9.