Three Teenagers Badly Hurt After Car Strikes Utility Pole in Woodbury

A gray Honda sedan traveling north on Route 32 struck a utility pole just south of Sweet Clover Road in the Town of Woodbury on Sunday afternoon, snapping the pole in half and sending three teenagers to the hospital with serious injuries.

The crash happened shortly after 2:00 p.m. on April 5. All three victims, reportedly ages 16 to 17 and from nearby Cornwall, were transported by New Windsor Ambulance. Woodbury Police have not officially confirmed the victims' identities, ages, or hometowns, and the extent of their injuries had not been released as of Monday.

Incident reporter Mark Lieb of Rockland Video Productions documented the scene. Orange and Rockland Utilities crews responded to replace the pole, which the impact had left split in two. Despite the severity of the strike, no power outages were reported in the surrounding area.

Woodbury Police confirmed that multiple people were badly hurt and that the crash remains under active investigation. No cause has been announced.

National data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration puts crashes like this one in sharp relief: nearly 15 people die every day in the United States in traffic crashes caused by drivers between the ages of 15 and 20. In 2022, young drivers in that age range accounted for 13 percent of all U.S. traffic fatalities, totaling 5,239 deaths.

New York's Graduated Driver Licensing law restricts junior license holders under 18 to driving between 5 a.m. and 9 p.m. and limits them to no more than one non-family passenger under age 21. The crash occurred just after 2:00 p.m., within those permitted hours, but with three occupants reportedly in the vehicle, whether the passenger restriction applied to the driver remains among the questions Woodbury Police have yet to answer.