Police seek help to ID victims of fiery crash
Police are appealing for help to identify two people killed early Thursday when their car left a road near Maitland, struck a concrete post and landscape rock, then exploded in a fireball.
Jay Jager said two loud bangs awoke him and his wife at their County Road 2 home just after 2 a.m.
Within seconds, they were out the front door looking at the flaming wreckage of a Volvo hatchback on the lawn next door.
“I saw flames, but I couldn’t see there was a car in the middle. It wasn’t until I got close before I could tell it was a car,” said Jager.
The vehicle had travelled across the front of two lawns and a neighbour’s driveway before coming to rest. Along the way, it demolished a concrete post and dragged a landscape rock for several metres, spreading debris in all directions.
The intense flames shooting from the wreck prevented Jager from getting near the vehicle, so he called 911.
Police and firefighters were on scene within minutes, he said.
Ontario Provincial Police said the hatchback had been travelling east when it left the road and rolled several times before coming to rest facing the opposite direction.
Jager said he and police officers scoured the grounds nearby hoping to find any occupants who might have been thrown from the vehicle or who had walked away and collapsed.
Jager said that in the five years he and his wife have lived on the property they’ve “never seen anything like that so close.”
Jager said the road has seen its share of tragic crashes, including a fatality in February west of Prescott. Jager’s son Justin was one of the first people to arrive on the scene of that crash.
The road was closed to through traffic, from County Road 15 at Maitland to Blue Church Road, until about noon Thursday while officers with the OPP’s technical traffic collision team investigated.
Police have asked the public for assistance in identifying the victims and said anyone familiar with such a vehicle that might have been travelling the county road are asked to call Grenville OPP at 613925-4221 or toll-free at 1-888-2101122.