Unnamed Wenham Firefighter Injured in Icy Morning Crash

A Wenham firefighter was injured when the truck he was driving was struck by a SUV while parked at a crash scene on Grapevine Road on Monday morning.

The icy road conditions were to blame, said Fire Chief Bob Blanchard and Sgt. Mark Fraser.

The was originally called to Grapevine Road, at the intersection with Essex Street near the , where a car had gone of the road and struck a stonewall at 7:27 a.m. The car was headed north of Essex Street and slid on ice, right through the stop sign and across Grapevine Road, Fraser said. Nobody was hurt in that crash.

But just after a Wenham fire truck pulled up to the crash on the north side of Grapevine Road with its red lights flashing, a SUV driving west lost control on the icy road and struck the rear of the Wenham fire truck.

The driver – the only firefighter in the truck – was injured. Blanchard said the truck was hit from behind and it was not clear whether the firefighter was also struck. He was the only firefighter in the truck.

“We had just arrived and were setting up,” Blanchard said.

The 1999 Lincoln Navigator that struck the fire truck was driven by Donna Christensen, 60, of Rockport. She was not injured. She will not be issued any tickets and will not face any charges, Fraser said.

“The weather conditions caused a flash freeze,” Fraser said.

Christensen had already begun to slow down when she moved to give herself more room to get around the truck, Fraser said. That’s when her SUV began to slide and sideswiped the truck. At the same time, the firefighter was just getting out of the truck.

“He dove back in to the fire truck as the Navigator went by,” Fraser said, adding that that the firefighter then fell out on to the street after the crash.

The unnamed injured firefighter was complaining of shoulder pain and was taken by ambulance to Beverly Hospital, where he was treated and released on Monday morning.

The name of the injured firefighter could not be released because of federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations, Blanchard said, adding that he was a male call firefighter. Fraser said Wenham police also would not release the name of the injured firefighter.

It’s still not determined the extent of the damage to the fire truck, which is a Ford F350 four-wheel drive brush truck with a small pump on the rear and dually wheels, Blanchard said. The truck is often used to respond to car crashes in bad weather, Blanchard said.

The truck wasn’t driveable after the crash and it has been sent to a Ford autobody shop for repairs.

Those two crashes were the only two weather-related in crashes on Monday morning in Wenham.

“That area was like a skating rink,” Fraser said.