At 2:38 p.m. on Thursday, August 28, Acton Police were called to a one-vehicle crash on Willow St. at Marian Rd. The driver and passenger were standing near the car when emergency responders arrived. The driver, a Hudson man aged 85, could not remember what had happened and eventually said he thought he might have blacked out. The front seat airbags had deployed and the car sustained heavy front-end damage. The driver and the passenger, an 85-year-old woman from New Jersey, were both transported to Emerson Hospital for possible injuries.
Police Chief Jim Cogan provided the Acton Exchange with the police report. In the report, the responding officer, Marc Symington, wrote, “Upon arrival I observed…a 2013 Lexus RX350, color brown…was off to the side of the road (northbound lane) on Willow Street with a broken utility pole laying on top of the vehicle. Wires were also down in the area, and laying across the road going towards Marian Rd. Eversource was notified and responded to repair the damaged utility pole and the downed wires.”
Two residents contacted the Acton Exchange. Tom Beals of Willow St. said that his housemate could not reach their house to get ready for work, because of the blocked traffic. The other neighbor, George Caplan of Marian Rd., said he has a wired-in generator, so the outage did not affect him much. “I took my usual walk around 3:30 PM. Lots of cars were on Duggan Road. An Acton Highway Department crew was there. They said the cars were coming through because [of the accident]. Since school had started, the school buses were making their usual afternoon trips on Duggan Road. That added to the traffic,” Caplan said.
An Eversource spokeswoman said the company was notified about the accident by police just before 3 p.m. She said the crash “caused significant damage to one of our utility poles, snapping it in half, bringing down overhead electric lines and resulting in a power outage for nearly 300 customers. Our crews worked quickly to shut off power, make the area safe and begin repairs. They remained on site throughout the afternoon and evening to complete the work and restore power. Electricity was fully restored to all impacted customers by 1:30 a.m”.
Franny Osman is the editor-in-chief of the Acton Exchange and writes the occasional story.