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Icy roads caused several accidents over weekend

By Staff | Feb 8, 2011

3 injured in Muncy crash

MUNCY- A pregnant woman and a male passenger were injured when their SUV skidded off the Susquehanna Trail, went over a 25-foot embankment and overturned just before 9 a.m. Sunday. The crash occurred about one mile south of Muncy.

Two victims were trapped in a Ford Explorer for about 20 minutes before the Muncy Creek Township Fire Department arrived. The woman was taken by ambulance to the Williamsport Regional Medical Center while her passenger was taken to Muncy Valley Hospital. Their identities were not available.

“The ice was terrible,” one fire officer said in describing the condition of the road.

“When you got out of your vehicle, you could hardly stand up,” the officer said.

Road conditions were so trecherous that a third volunteer fire company officer responding to the crash lost control of his pickup truck about 250 yards from the scene.

The truck went up a slight embankment and overturned on its driver side, landing in the middle of the road. The firefighter was not injured.

State police were investigating both crashes, and it was hoped they would release more details later today.

Fatality in Clinton Townwhip

MONTGOMERY – State police reported that slippery road conditions were a contributing factor in a fatal crash that occurred in the area on Saturday when freezing rain suddenly turned many regional roads into skating rinks.

Speed is believed to have been a factor that claimed the life of a 19-year-old Montgomery driver.

Justin Matthew Fuller, of 60 Broad St., was traveling north in the 800 block of Pinchtown Road in Clinton Township at a high rate of speed when his 1999 Chevrolet Malibu struck a snow bank and overturned several times before striking a tree about 2:45 a.m., police said.

Fuller was pronounced dead on arrival at Williamsport Regional Medical Center of blunt force trauma injuries, Lycoming County Coroner Charles E. Kiessling Jr. said.

Emergency personnel respond to pileup on 220

PICTURE ROCKS – Icy road conditions kept volunteer firefighters responding to numerous accidents on Saturday.

“It was pretty miserable out there,” said Al Little, Picture Rocks Chief “The roads iced up very fast.”

Freezing rain also caused a pileup that forced the closure of a two-mile stretch of Route 220 from Glen Mawr to Route 42 in Sullivan County, Little said.

A pickup truck traveling south skidded on ice and overturned on its side on Route 220. The female driver was not hurt. Two water tankers directly behind her skidded to a halt, coming within two or three feet of the pickup, Little said.

The operator of a van behind the tankers was not so lucky in avoiding a collision, Little said. “The van slid into one of the tankers and became wedged between the tanker and a guardrail. No one was injured,” he said.

“There were stretches of the road that were not slippery, but then all of a sudden you could easily come upon a section that was a sheet of ice,” Little said.