According to Boston 25 News, a car slammed into a tractor-trailer on Third Street in Chelsea, leaving the vehicle's roof peeled back and partially wedged beneath the much larger truck. First responders had to use the jaws of life to pull the trapped driver out of the mangled wreckage.
According to Boston 25 News, the crash left the car partially wedged under the trailer, and responders used extrication tools to free the person inside.
Driver Escapes With Minor Injuries
Despite the severity of the wreck, the driver pulled from the car suffered only minor injuries, the outlet's report notes. The extent of damage to the vehicle itself, with its roof torn back and the car partially wedged beneath the tractor-trailer, suggested the crash could have been far worse.
It remains unclear exactly how the collision unfolded. Per the same report, police had not said what led up to the crash, leaving the sequence of events on Third Street unexplained for now.
Federal safety standards require most trailers and semitrailers with a gross vehicle weight rating above 10,000 pounds to have rear impact guards designed to reduce the risk of a passenger vehicle sliding underneath in a rear collision. The account of Friday’s crash does not say where the car struck the trailer or whether a rear guard was involved, so it does not establish whether the federal standard is relevant to this collision. NHTSA’s underride-protection rules address rear impacts; the agency has separately studied side underride protection.
Heavy vehicles are part of Chelsea’s freight landscape. The city’s planning document identifies Eastern Avenue and Everett Avenue as waterfront truck routes and says freight moving through the area consists mainly of road salt, petroleum and petroleum products. It also describes the Chelsea and Meridian Street bridges as connections to East Boston. That broader network helps explain why truck traffic is a recurring local transportation issue, though the document does not identify Third Street as a truck route. Chelsea’s open-space and recreation plan outlines those routes and freight connections.
A tractor-trailer crash in Chelsea earlier this year also led to a lengthy road closure: on June 23, a car became pinned beneath a gasoline tanker on Eastern Avenue, and two people were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with injuries. The tanker was leaking gasoline, raising concerns about ignition, and the road remained closed for hours. The incident underscored the hazards heavy-truck collisions can pose beyond the vehicles involved. The June crash on Eastern Avenue involved a tanker and a different stretch of Chelsea.
