Four hospitalized following two vehicle crash

By Everett Brazil, III

The Newkirk Herald Journal

KILDARE — Five victims were hospitalized Wednesday afternoon, March 1 after being involved in a two-car accident west of Kildare.

The accident occurred at State Highway 11 and Union Street west of U.S. Highway 77. Ponca City dispatch called the Newkirk Fire Department (NFD) to the scene after a car and pickup with a horse trailer hit.

“This was a t-bone accident,” said Fire Chief Adam Longcrier. “It appears that the car went to do a u-turn at the intersection, and didn’t yield to the vehicle heading west-bound and they hit at 12:35 p.m.”

First responders arrived with two ambulances, the rescue unit and the command unit.

“We found the two vehicles sitting on an embankment west of the intersection,” he said. “We had five patients in the car, and the driver of the truck was already out of the vehicle. He was uninjured.”
Due to the severity of injuries, first responders immediately called for air ambulances, which were dispatched from Stillwater and Cushing. Assistance also came from Blackwell, who brought an additional ambulance.

“When we got to the scene we immediately called an air ambulance because we knew we were going to fly at least one patient out,” he said.

Rescuers had to stabilize the car to pull the pickup off it on the embankment.

“The truck was pulling a horse trailer, and we hooked chains to it and hooked it to the Blackwell commands vehicle,” he said. “We pulled the truck and trailer off the car so we could access the driver side of the car. We used chains on the car because we didn’t want it to slide off when we removed the truck.”
Rescuers used the jaws of life on the car to extricate the patients out of the vehicle, starting with the driver.

“We moved her in the back of one of our ambulances and prepared her for her flight,” he said. “We took a second patient out of the vehicle and placed her in the back of another ambulance. After placing her in the ambulance and looking her over, we decided to fly her, as well, so we called a second helicopter to transport her.”

The patients were flown to St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa.
A third patient was transported by Blackwell to AllianceHealth Ponca City, and later transported to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita.

The four patients suffered numerous severe injuries, including to the head, back, legs, ribs, ankles and hips, as well as internal bleeding.

“The fifth patient had minor injuries, we didn’t transport them,” he said.

Longcrier believes the accident was the fault of the car.

“The truck hit the car but it was the car’s fault,” he said. “The car did a u-turn at the intersection and pulled out in front of the truck that was westbound.”

Also assisting were Kildare Volunteer Fire Department, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Kaw Nation Emergency Management and the Kay County Sheriff’s Office.

Longcrier is thankful that the scene went smoothly and there were no casualties.

“It was a bad situation, but the firemen stayed focused. They knew their job because we train for this type of work with Blackwell, and it went real smooth,” he said. “It is a miracle that, due to the damage, nobody was killed in the accident.”