Eganville – Two people were transported to hospital early Monday evening with life-threatening injuries received in a single-vehicle rollover on Grist Mill Road in North Algona Wilberforce Township, about 5 km east of Eganville shortly before 5 p.m.

One of the passengers in the vehicle, a 40-year-old man from Admaston-Bromley Township, was airlifted by ORNG from the scene and flown to an Ottawa hospital while a second passenger, a 23-year-old man, also from Admaston/Bromley Township, was first taken to hospital in Renfrew by land ambulance and then airlifted to Ottawa with life-threatening injuries.

The driver of the Mazda car, Dalton Kilby-McClure, 24, of Eganville, was transported to an OPP detachment for further testing where he was then arrested and charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle, operating a motor vehicle while having over 80 mgs of alcohol per 100 ml of blood, and two counts of impaired operation causing bodily harm. The driver was uninjured.

Grist Mill Road runs from Eganville to Hwy. 60, just east of Kelly’s Corner. The car was travelling from Eganville when it went out of control on a straight stretch of roadway after cresting a steep hill near the Sadler farm. The vehicle veered to the left and then back to the right where it left the road on a downgrade, flipped over and crashed through trees before coming to rest on its roof in a field. The car narrowly missed a large poplar tree.

The driver of the vehicle managed to get out on his own and one of the passengers managed to crawl out. Firefighters from the Eganville Station of the Bonnechere Valley Township Fire Department extricated the second passenger. The Rankin Station of the North Algona Wilberforce Township Fire Department was also on scene and assisted in the extrication.

Marjorie Joly, Executive Director of Hospice Renfrew, and her spouse, Mark Moss, were on their way to Eganville to pick up the vehicle that is being raffled off this weekend for Hospice Renfrew’s 15^th anniversary when they came up on the mishap.

A couple travelling in the opposite direction also stopped at the scene about the same time.

“The driver was already out of the car and one of the passengers had managed to crawl out,” Ms. Joly said. “Mark was assessing the passenger inside but he was trapped and we just consoled them until emergency services arrived.”

Paramedics from Eganville and Renfrew bases responded to the crash as did Ontario Provincial Police officers from both the Killaloe and Upper Ottawa Valley detachments.

Grist Mill Road was closed for several hours following the incident.