PERU — A young woman was injured when her car struck a downed tree on Route 108 late Wednesday, shattering the windshield, Peru fire Chief Bill Hussey said.
The driver rounded a sweeping curve and drove through the crown of a huge poplar tree that had fallen across the road, he said.
“I think she’s lucky,” Hussey said. “I’m not sure if it fell as she went through it or it was on the road and she drove through the top branches. It was really scary for her and she was quite shaken up. She had just got out of work and had just moved here and was headed home.”
The Oxford County Sheriff’s deputy investigating the crash was not available Thursday to provide the driver’s name.
Hussey said the woman, who was alone in the car, was struck by glass fragments when the windshield of her 2004 Hyundai shattered. She refused treatment and a trip to the hospital with Med-Care Ambulance.
The chief said firefighters were called to the scene at 11:15 p.m. to remove the tree, which broke away from the base of another tree and fell across a drainage ditch and the road. He said he believes heavy rains this week may have loosened the tree’s base and weighed down leaves.
“We had to use three chain saws to cut it up and move it off the road,” he said.
Skid marks on the road showed the path of the car, which still had leaves embedded in it at Roland’s Automotive in Mexico beside Route 2 where it was towed.
Traffic was rerouted to Peru Center Road for about an hour. The scene was two-tenths of a mile south of Faith Baptist Church.
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