AMHERST — The death of an 83-year-old Amherst woman in a Jan. 14 crash involving the Hyundai Tucson she was driving and a Volvo VN tractor-trailer remains under investigation, according to the Northwestern district attorney’s office.
Susan Blodgett, of Stony Hill Road, was transported by UMass Memorial Life Flight helicopter to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield following the 2:30 p.m. crash at Belchertown and Harkness roads. She died while en route to the hospital, spokeswoman Melissa Sippel said.
The driver of the tractor-trailer truck, a 45-year-old man, was brought by ambulance to Baystate.
Amherst Firefighters Local 1764, in a Facebook post about the incident, wrote that the original 911 call reported an entrapped and critically injured patient, with the initial on-duty response consisting of one ambulance and one engine staffed by a single Amherst fire captain. The limited response, due to other on-duty crews being committed to medical calls at the time, prompted a request for mutual aid departments and off-duty personnel.
“Through the combined efforts of on-duty crews, off-duty personnel, and Pelham Fire, the patient was successfully extricated, advanced life support was initiated, a landing zone was secured, and care was transferred to the flight crew,” the union wrote.
Belchertown Fire ambulance transported the second patient, and University of Massachusetts Police assisted with securing the landing zone on the campus.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, with assistance from the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, Crime Scene Services, and the Amherst Police Department, Sippel said.