Interagency Rescue on Dryden Road: Multi-Department Effort Frees Pinned Driver in Off-Road Wreck

DRYDEN, NY — Volunteer firefighters and emergency medical personnel executed a coordinated, high-angle rescue and mechanical extrication Monday morning, freeing a critically injured driver trapped inside the mangled cab of a box truck several hundred feet off Route 13.

Just prior to 10:00 a.m. on August 24, Neptune Hose Co. 1 of Dryden and Dryden Ambulance were dispatched to a serious motor vehicle collision involving a passenger automobile and a commercial box truck on Route 13 (Dryden Road) in the vicinity of the cemetery.

First-arriving emergency responders discovered that the box truck had veered off the roadway, traveling hundreds of feet into rough terrain before coming to a rest. The vehicle sustained heavy structural damage, leaving the driver severely injured and pinned within the cab wreckage.

Recognizing the severity of the entrapment and injuries, incident command immediately summoned a medical evacuation helicopter and requested mutual aid from the W.B. Strong Fire Company (Freeville) and the Cayuga Heights Fire Department to provide additional extrication manpower and secure an emergency landing zone.

Fire crews deployed specialized hydraulic heavy rescue tools to cut away structural metal and relieve impingement, while emergency medical personnel administered aggressive advanced life support directly inside the cab. Following an extensive extrication effort, the driver was successfully freed and transferred into a Dryden Ambulance.

The patient was transported by ground to a designated landing zone where LifeNet 7-12 had touched down, and was subsequently airlifted to the Level 1 trauma center at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. A second patient from the involved passenger car was transported to Upstate by ground ambulance, while a third occupant was evaluated and declined further medical treatment.