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Woman could've been trapped in car for 12 hours after crash

Watch the full story on Boston 25 News

SALISBURY, Mass. - An overgrown patch off I-95 in Salisbury – an area ripe to be ignored by passing motorists – was the scene of a serious crash on Monday involving a young woman.

But nobody knew about it for perhaps as long as 12 hours.

“I would guess that hundreds of vehicles passed by this location,” Salisbury Fire Chief Scott Carrigan told Boston 25 News. “She may have ben involved in an accident after leaving work. That could have been anywhere in the neighborhood of one or two o'clock in the morning … and we were alerted to the accident at one o'clock in the afternoon.”

The vehicle was no more than 10 to 15 feet off the road, but it was essentially in a ditch.

A trucker coming off exit 60 finally saw it in the woods and alerted Mass. Department of Transportation employees working at the rest stop.

According to MassDOT, one employee notified the highway operations center while the other called state police.

While one employee waited to direct first responders to the location of the vehicle, the other employee remained with the vehicle occupant and spoke with her about what had happened and reassured her that help was on the way.

That help came in the form of a med flight.

“We made a decision to land that right at the scene and evacuate her to a hospital in Boston,” Chief Carrigan explained.

As bad as it was for that driver to end up in that ditch for hours undiscovered. It actually could have been worse. Because on the way in, she avoided several obstructions.

She hit a guardrail at a low point and, most importantly, she entirely missed a concrete base with exposed rebar – apparently the remnants of a light pole.

Nonetheless her vehicle was so banged up, it was almost unrecognizable.

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