A Burlington man was trapped in his car for up to 12 hours on a rocky embankment this week following a crash on Interstate 89 in which he was seriously injured, officials said.
Vermont State Police said Dakota Rockwell, 29, drove off the side of I-89 southbound in Richmond at about 9 p.m. Wednesday, but police did not find him until the following morning. His car had gone about 40 feet down an embankment, officials said.
Rockwell could not get out of the car because of his injuries, which included a broken ankle and severe cuts on his face, according to a state police press release. Once he was removed from the car, he was taken to the University of Vermont Medical Center, officials said.
Police said they got a call about a car off the road at mile marker 78 on I-89 southbound at about 8 a.m. Thursday. A trooper “drove through the general area,” Adam Silverman, a state police spokesperson, said in an email, but did not see any signs of a crash.
About an hour and a half later, police said, they got a call from a person who had seen a car off I-89 southbound at mile marker 79. Police checked the area again, according to the press release, and found the car in a location “not easily observed from the highway.”
“The initial call did not have a specific location of where the crash occurred,” Silverman said. “The subsequent report had a more specific location, which enabled the responding trooper to find evidence of the crash (and) locate the vehicle.”
The Williston Fire Department, which responded to the crash, said in a press release that “the only visible indication of a crash was some debris on the side of the road.”
Williston Fire Capt. Prescott Nadeau said a driver would have had to be in a tall vehicle and “really paying attention” to see the crashed car. The person who called state police the second time was in a tractor-trailer truck and barely caught a glimpse of it, he said.
Nadeau also said the portion of I-89 where Rockwell’s car was found has had multiple dangerous crashes in recent years, and he urged drivers to use caution.
Police said that Rockwell was not wearing a seat belt when he crashed.
Rockwell remained hospitalized at UVMMC on Friday. Reached by phone, he declined to speak with a reporter.
