A driver was airlifted to a trauma center early Wednesday after an SUV rolled onto its side and struck a tree on Point Lookout Road in Mechanicsville — the latest in a string of at least four serious crashes on the same road in less than a week.
Units were dispatched at 3:01 a.m. after an initial report of a single-vehicle collision with no injuries; responding units instead found the SUV overturned against a tree with three occupants, two of whom had already gotten themselves out and one still trapped inside. Chief 2B established command while Rescue Squad 2’s officer set up an extrication group; crews from Rescue Squad 2 and Rescue Squad 7 used hydraulic rescue tools to free the trapped occupant by 3:20 a.m. Engine 23 secured a landing zone at nearby Margaret Brent Middle School for a Maryland State Police helicopter, which flew the extricated patient to an area trauma center. The two other occupants were treated and taken to area hospitals by ground. Command was terminated at 3:37 a.m.
The crash caps an unusually rough stretch for Point Lookout Road (MD 5). On Sept. 3, a passenger vehicle and a St. Mary’s County school bus collided at Point Lookout Road and St. Andrew’s Church Road; no one on the bus was hurt, but one adult in the passenger vehicle needed to be freed by crews. The next day, Sept. 4, a separate crash at Point Lookout Road and Loveville Road left an SUV driver heavily pinned against the steering wheel and required a coordinated extrication before she was flown to a trauma center with serious injuries. That same intersection saw another injury crash just four days later, on Sept. 8. Together with Wednesday’s Mechanicsville rollover, that’s four serious crashes on the same road within a single week.
The corridor is already the focus of state safety investment. MDOT’s State Highway Administration has a $32.4 million project underway to widen and improve safety along MD 5 near Great Mills, citing the area’s rapid residential and commercial growth, in addition to an earlier $24 million safety and access project completed near Point Lookout State Park. Neither project covers the stretch of road running through Mechanicsville or Leonardtown, where this week’s crashes occurred.
