A 30-year-old Peterborough woman was treated for minor injuries after rolling her vehicle on Friday night, Dec. 26, on South Bennington Road in Bennington.
“The Bennington fire chief extricated the woman from her vehicle, and we got her in the ambulance, and the major concern was the hypothermia,” said Antrim Fire Chief Marshall Gale. “She was cold. Her footwear and her pants up to her knees were wet, and it was about 14 degrees out, and we were right in the middle of that snowstorm.”
According to Gale, the driver lost control of the vehicle, which left the roadway and rolled into wetlands on the south side of South Bennington Road.
“The vehicle was not in the river, but it had gone into a very wet area with some swamplands. There was some water coming in the vehicle,” Gale said.
The crash occurred about a half mile west of Bennington’s town center, near South Bennington Road, which runs parallel to the Contoocook River, and Paradise Road.
Gale said that initial reports indicated that the vehicle had rolled into the Contoocook River, prompting response from multiple departments, including Bennington Fire and Rescue, Bennington Police, Antrim Police, Antrim Fire and Rescue, and the New Hampshire mutual aid water rescue task force.
“When the call first came in, we thought the vehicle had jumped the guardrails, and we thought she was in the river,” Gale said. “We thought at first it was a lot worse than it was. It was a very great relief to Chief Anderson that the car was on the other side of the road and not in the Contoocook River. That would have been very life-threatening.”
The driver was transported by Antrim Fire and Rescue to Monadnock Community Hospital for evaluation.