The Oak Ridge Electric Department installs a new utility pole after a driver crashed into the old one and broke it on Old Edgemoor Road on Thursday morning.
A driver had to be cut from his upside-down SUV and taken to the hospital on Thursday morning after he crashed into a guide wire on a utility pole on Old Edgemoor Road, traveled up the wire, and then hit the pole and broke it, authorities said.
The Mercury Mountaineer likely went about 10 feet in the air and then fell on its top, crushing the roof, said Marty Griffith, Oak Ridge Fire Department battalion chief. Electrical lines landed on top of the vehicle, and the Oak Ridge Electric Department was called to turn off the power.
Griffith said the driver was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville with a head laceration. He did not have any other obvious injuries. Griffith said the man might have had a medical emergency before the crash.
The driver, who was disoriented when rescuers arrived, had been headed east on Edgemoor Road in east Oak Ridge a little before 10 a.m. Thursday when he ran off the right side of the road just before Old Edgemoor Road, Griffith said.
The Oak Ridge Electric Department reported that the crash interrupted power to the area and side streets.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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