UPDATE:Seymour police have identified the man killed in Tuesday’s horrific crash on Rimmon Street as Shyheim Samuel, of Derby, according to several news outlets. He lived on Fifth Street.
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He was 20 years old.
Original post follows:
One person is dead after a car full of teenagers collided with a utility pole on Rimmon Street in Seymour Tuesday.
There were six people total in the car. They ranged in age from 14 to 18 years old 20 years old, according to police.
The name of the person who died and the names of the other people in the car were not released as of 1 a.m. Wednesday.
The five survivors were taken to several nearby trauma hospitals.
“There are serious injuries to some of the victims, and there are life-threatening injuries to some of the other victims at this time,” Seymour Police Deputy Chief Paul Satkowski said at the scene.
Speed is believed to have played a role in the crash.
Story continues after WTNH video report:
Police, fire and ambulance crews received several 911 calls reporting the crash about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The car hit the pole so hard the pole snapped in three places. The car was on its roof with live wires in front of it as firefighters approached to get the victims out.
“Wires were everywhere, so they had quite a task trying to get to the victims in the vehicle,” Satkowski said.
“We were able to access a door and basically pull them out of the vehicle,” Seymour Fire Chief Michael Lombardi said. “We used extreme caution and did our best to keep the patients safe and to keep our personnel safe.”
At midnight a crew from a utility company was using a bucket truck to try to stabilize the shattered utility pole. A white sheet was draped over the car, meant to shield the public from the wreck’s aftermath.
Police were waiting for the pole and power lines to be stabilized so that an accident reconstruction team could begin to piece together just what happened.
Satkowski described the vehicle as a sedan. Rimmon Street, a two-way residential street not far from Route 67, was expected to be closed through the night.
Satkowski said the investigation is in the early stages, but noted that speed played a factor.
“I will say at this time that speed definitely played a factor. We’ll try to determine if anything else played a role in this,” Satkowski said. “We’re looking at everything, including how this began, where they came from,” he said.
Responding to a fatal crash is never easy for first responders, particularly when young people are involved.
“Everybody has a job to do. Right now that’s what we’re focusing on. We’ll probably debrief at a later date and time,” Satkowski said.
Seymour police were expected to reach out to the state police accident reconstruction team to assist in the investigation.
Seymour First Selectman Kurt Miller was on the scene. He reported that initially 400 Eversource customers were without power as a result of the damage to the utility pole.
CORRECTION:
Several posts referred to TUESDAY’s fatal crash in Seymour as happening Monday. We regret the error and the stories have been updated. Special thanks to Dawnmarie Selling Hunter for pointing out the correct day.
