A car accident resulted in a vehicle spinning off the road and landing on the frozen Ottauquechee River on Monday morning, Feb. 23. According to interim Woodstock Police Chief Chris O’Keeffe, the accident occurred around 9:20 a.m. when Esther Griffith (81) of Woodstock was traveling eastbound in her 2022 GMC Terrain on East Woodstock Road near the Taftsville Bridge when she made an abrupt U-turn and collided with the vehicle that had been following behind her. The other vehicle was a 2017 Subaru Outback operated by Daniel Bellmore (79) of Woodstock. O’Keeffe said that when Griffith struck Bellmore, her GMC bounced off the Subaru and went off the roadway, over the bank, and into the river.
O’Keeffe estimated that the car came to a halt about 100 feet off the roadway and down a 50-foot embankment. He said that the river was frozen at the time of the accident and supported the vehicle until the very end of the extraction, when it began to sink a few inches into the ice.
The Woodstock Fire Department responded to the accident. O’Keeffe said that a firefighter hooked up to a harness and rappelled down the embankment to extract Griffith from the vehicle. She was then loaded onto a litter and brought back up, where she was assessed for minor injuries and transported to Dartmouth Health Medical Center. Montshire Towing extracted the vehicle from the river. Both lanes of traffic were closed for about 15-20 minutes, and were down to one lane for about 45 minutes. Bellmore was not injured and was able to drive away in his Subaru, O’Keeffe said. He noted that a ticket for Griffith is pending.
