Oxford Girl Cut From Car, Doing OK

An Oxford teenager escaped relatively unharmed after being involved a serious one-car accident on Riggs Street late Thursday night.

At 11:20 p.m., members of the cut the roof off of a 2000 Mercury Cougar to extricate the driver, Rachel McGill, 17, who driving southbound on Riggs Street when she lost control of the vehicle on a wet roadway around a corner in front of 67 Riggs St., according to a police report. The car which was driven by McGill struck a rock wall on the right side of the street, spun out of control and collided with a tree abutting the wall, the report states. The Cougar came to an “uncontrolled stop on top of the rock wall,” according to the report.

When firefighters arrived, they found McGill, the only person in the car, pinned between the roof and the steering wheel, Fire Chief Scott Pelletier said. They carefully cut the roof off and took McGill out of the vehicle within 12 minutes, he said.

transported McGill to Waterbury Hospital to be treated for back pain and for observation, the report states. Police said Friday that McGill had been released from the hospital and was doing fine.

The car was totaled in the accident, and McGill, whom police said recently got her license, was cited for traveling too fast for conditions. The investigation is closed, police said.