By Trent Spiner
The Associated Press
SALISBURY, N.H. — An 18-year-old girl was killed and four others hospitalized after a car crashed into a pickup truck yesterday morning along Route 4 in Salisbury.
Neither the driver nor the three passengers in the car were wearing seatbelts, and fire Chief Rick Gilman called it one of the worst crashes he’s seen in his 20-year career.
“We’re still trying to put it together,” he said. “The bottom line is a young lady lost her life today. It was awful, awful.”
State police Trooper Ron Taylor said the car, a Toyota Corolla, was traveling eastbound when its driver lost control. The car veered across the center divider, striking a pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction, Taylor said.
The truck’s driver, James Colby, 56, suffered no serious injuries but was taken by ambulance to Concord Hospital with neck pains. In an interview with the Monitor after his release, he said he saw the car coming.
“It appeared to me the car was going fast,” Colby said from his Boscawen home. “It drifted off to the right. When they tried to correct it, they over-corrected, and they just went pinwheeling across the road into me. I had nowhere to go.”
In a press release last night, the state police said speed and alcohol do not appear to be factors in the crash.
Manchester resident Alexis Gendron was killed instantly, according to the police, who said she received the brunt of the collision sitting in the Corolla’s front passenger seat.
Gendron was a 2009 graduate of Manchester Central High School who loved playing the violin, according to Principal John Rist.
Gendron’s friend from the school’s orchestra, Kayla Martel, 17, of Hooksett, was driving the car, according to the police.
During the crash, the car crumpled around her, forcing firefighters to use hydraulic tools to cut her from the wreckage, according to Gilman. Martel was transported to Concord Hospital.
Two men from Penacook who were in the backseat were ejected from the car.
Emergency crews called in a helicopter to fly Christopher Cheney- Rolfe, 21, to a trauma center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, according to the state police. He suffered life- threatening head injuries. Cheney-Rolfe’s condition could not be confirmed by press time.
Michael Ellis, 19, also suffered serious injuries and was taken to Concord Hospital, the state police said.
The crash occurred at 8:56 a.m., just as Sue Poliquin and Jean Descoteaux were fixing breakfast.
At the time, Poliquin was standing at the window above the sink in her kitchen.
“I heard no brakes, just a sound that was like a gunshot,” she said. “After that, I saw parts from cars flying everywhere.”
Through the window, she saw the wreckage of two vehicles come to a stop at theof her driveway.
“The first thing I saw was the girl laying there, hanging out the car,” Poliquin said. “I knew she was dead.”
Poliquin, Descoteaux and bystanders immediately ran to help. They brought blankets to the victims, but most of the injuries were too severe to help.
Descoteaux said the car was so damaged he couldn’t see Martel in the driver’s seat.
“We both kept thinking, ‘Oh my God, what do you do?’ ” Poliquin said.
As news of the crash spread yesterday, people in a number of communities began to cope with the tragedy.
In Boscawen, Colby, who had been driving his pickup truck to an auction in Tilton, said wearing a seatbelt saved his life.
If the passengers in the car were also wearing seatbelts and going 15 mph slower, they would have all survived, Colby said.
“I feel rotten,” he said. “I mean, I don’t have any guilt at all because I know it wasn’t my fault, but I feel bad for the driver. There’s one kid dead and three people’s lives changed forever. I’ll heal, and I’ll be all right, but they are the ones who it will be with for the rest of their lives. It’ll be with me, too.”
Rist said counselors will be on hand today at the school. He said Gendron was shy except when she was with friends from within the music department.
“She was very typical of any violin player, quiet, reserved, respectful,” he said. “She was a wonderful kid.”
Rist said Martel is more outgoing.
“Everybody seems to know Kayla,” he said. She is slated to graduate in June.
Witnesses are asked to contact Trooper Michael Feinauer at 271- 3636.
Copyright 2010 Concord Monitor/Sunday Monitor