STONINGTON, CT — Off-duty New London police officer Eric Sadowski was driving back from Stop and Shop in Pawcatuck with his girlfriend and children Sunday when he saw the cars in front of him move out of the way to avoid something.
He thought maybe there was something in the road they were trying to drive around, he recalled on Monday.
"And then I saw the vehicle coming right towards me, head-on, in the oncoming traffic lane," Sadowski said. "So I swerved left ― out of the way."
What Sadowski, a Stonington resident and former U.S. Marine, and other drivers saw was a car driven by a man in his 70s drifting across the four lanes of Route 2.
Deputy Police Chief Todd Olson said the man did not hit any cars but then crashed into a utility pole around 3 p.m. in front of Hartford Health Care building. He explained that just before the crash, the man had pulled over into the parking lot of the nearby Tractor Supply Co., because he was not feeling well.
After narrowly avoiding being hit head-on, Sadowski said he had turned his head and watched the man's car go over a curb, "climb up" the utility pole and flip on its roof. He said he turned his car around and pulled into the Hartford Health Care parking lot, where other drivers had stopped.
Sadowski said the man was upside down in the car, suspended from his seatbelt, with the windows closed.
"And he was pretty much purple," he said, as the man appeared to be suffering from a lack of oxygen.
Sadowski said he and another person went to look for something so they could break the car window. The bystander broke it, and Sadowski brushed away the broken glass. They unlocked the door, unbuckled the man's seatbealt, pulled him out and rolled him on his side. They checked his breathing.
"He started to breathe a little better," Sadowski said.
At that point, Pawcatuck firefighters arrived and took over treating the man, Sadowski said. Meanwhile Life Star helicopter had landed in a nearby commuter lot to fly the man to the hospital.
But Olson said the man did not need to be transported by helicopter.
"It sounded like a worse accident than it was," Olson said.
Sadowski said a priest who had been driving past stopped to bless the man, whose condition initially did not look good.
Westerly Ambulance brought the man to Lawrence + Memorial Hospital.
Olson said said the man's accident injuries were non-life-threatening. Westerly Ambulance Corps Assistant Chief Michael T. Brancato declined to comment on the patient's condition due to patient confidentiality.
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