February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Jim Smith
RAYNHAM, Mass. — A 26-year-old County Wexford man died last Thursday night when the car he was driving crashed into two other vehicles along Rte. 138 in Raynham, a town in southeastern Massachusetts.
Police say that Adrian O’Connor was speeding and may have been drunk when he rear-ended one car and slammed head-on into another, sending two women and five children to hospitals.
O’Connor, who had come to the Raynham area in July from Ireland and was driving alone in his girlfriend’s Pontiac Grand Prix, first struck a Honda civic occupied by a 52-year-old woman and her 8-year-old granddaughter, who had recently completed a series of chemotherapy treatments for cancer.
The Honda was forced about 30 feet off the road over a boulder and into adjacent trees. The young girl was air-lifted to a Boston hospital with a broken leg, while her grandmother was treated for a neck injury.
After rear-ending the Honda, O’Connor’s car continued down the highway, colliding head-on with an oncoming Dodge Caravan driven by a 34-year-old woman and carrying her four young children. Two of those children and their mother were taken to Boston hospitals from the scene of the accident, while the two youngest children were treated and released at a local hospital.
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A spokeswoman at Massachusetts General Hospital told the Echo Monday that the driver of the van, Nancy Quintin, and her daughter Jordan were recently upgraded from fair to good condition. Her other daughter, Chandler, was recently released in good condition from Boston Medical Center.
Raynham Police Chief Pete King told the Echo Tuesday that a preliminary investigation indicates that O’Connor may have fallen asleep at the wheel while under the influence of alcohol. Results of a toxicology report should be available in a few weeks.
"It was a very messy scene out there, and fortunately the occupants of the other vehicles were wearing seat belts," King said.
O’Connor’s body was flown back to Ireland for funeral services this week. He is survived by his parents and four brothers.