Mass State Police: Marlborough Man, 31, Killed in Route 290 Wrong Way Crash

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MARLBOROUGH – Mass State Police are investigating a fatal wrong way crash on Route 290 on Sunday night, January 23.

On Sunday, January 22, just before 9 p.m. Massachusetts State Police received a call reporting a single-car spinout crash on Interstate 290 east in the area of the Burncoat Street exit (Exit 23, Route 70).

Patrols from the State Police-Holden Barracks began responding toward the crash scene. Moments later another call was received reporting a wrong-way operator going west on the eastbound side of I-290 approaching downtown Worcester.

At 8;55 p.m. a Mass State Police patrol located the wrong-way vehicle, a 2015 Honda Accord sedan, just after Belmont Street (Exit 21, Route 9).

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The westbound vehicle had just crashed head-on into a 2006 Toyota Highlander sport utility vehicle that was being operated eastbound.

Subsequent investigation determined that the Accord was the vehicle that been involved in the spinout crash several minutes earlier.

Preliminary investigation and reconstruction of this crash reveals that the Accord was eastbound on I-290 east when the operator, for reasons still under investigation, lost control of the car and crashed into the concrete median barrier separating the eastbound and westbound sides in the vicinity of the Burncoat exit. The vehicle ended up facing the wrong direction, and the operator of the Honda subsequently began driving the wrong way, westbound on the eastbound side.

Simultaneously, the 2006 Toyota Highlander was eastbound on I-290 East approaching the same location, according to the ongoing investigation. The two vehicles collided head-on in the vicinity of Exit 21. 

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The operator of the Accord, the wrong-way vehicle, a 31-year-old Marlborough man, was freed from the wreckage via non-mechanical means by first responders and was determined to be deceased on-scene.

The operator of the Highlander, a 24-year-old Worcester man, was transported by ambulance to UMass-Lakeside Medical Center in Worcester with non-life threatening injuries. 

The investigation is ongoing and is being conducted by Troop C of the Massachusetts State Police, the State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, State Police Crime Scene Services Section, and State Police Detective Unit for Worcester County, 

No further information is being released at this time, including the name of the deceased.

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