Friday, July 23--Multi-Vehicle Accident In OC Sends Five To Hospital

OCEAN CITY - Five people
were taken to area hospitals last week after a bizarre multi-vehicle pile-up on
Coastal Highway that resulted in a boat and trailer crossing the median into
the opposite lanes.

Around 1:40 p.m. last
Friday, a Hyundai sedan heading south on Coastal Highway in the area of 100^th
Street crossed out if its lane and collided with an SUV towing a trailer and
small boat. The force of the collision caused the trailer to swing around to
the right where it struck another southbound vehicle.

At that point, the
trailer became unhitched from the vehicle towing it and crossed the median and
careened into the northbound lanes of Coastal Highway where it struck another
vehicle. The force of that collision caused the vehicle to flip several times
before coming to rest. The northbound vehicle struck by the trailer ended up on
the raised median in the highway facing the opposite direction.

All in all, five
individuals were taken to area hospitals for a variety of injuries, none of
which were believed to have been life-threatening. Among the injured victims in
the multi-car accident were the drivers of each vehicle involved including a
22-year-old Ocean City woman, a 52-year-old man from Bel Air, a 50-year-old
woman from Dover and a 52-year-old Ocean City woman. For of the injured victims
were taken to Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, while one was
taken to Atlantic General Hospital in Berlin. The conditions of the victims
have not been made available.

The multi-vehicle
accident snarled lunchtime traffic on Coastal Highway for several hours as
emergency medical services tended to and transported the victims and multiple
tow trucks were called in to remove the damaged, and in one case, overturned,
vehicles. Coastal Highway was completely cleared around 3:30 p.m., or nearly
two hours after the accident. The investigation is ongoing, according to the
Ocean City Police Department.