Boat goes sailing off trailer in Lexington wreck that injures one, breaks electric power pole

A traffic accident on Man o’ War and Trent boulevards Monday afternoon injured a woman, damaged an electric power pole and launched a fishing boat into a brick wall.

Charles Patrick was driving home with his father-in-law from a fishing trip in Alabama and was hauling his boat on a trailer.

He said he was on the inner loop of Man o’ War and a little more a mile from home when he saw an oncoming car turning left in front of him.

“I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop, but I wanted to slow down as much as I could,” Patrick said.

Because of the weight of the trailer, Patrick said, he had a hard time even slowing down.

When his truck collided with the car, it spun to face the opposite direction, the trailer jackknifed and his boat launched into the grass, toppling bricks off a small wall as it went.

The woman driving the car was trapped in her vehicle, which was pinned between Patrick’s truck and an electric pole. The pole cracked in the collision.

Firefighters rushed to get her out of her car because the live wires on the utility pole were leaning dangerously close to a metal pole that was touching her car, Lexington fire Maj. Robert King said.

If the wires had touched the metal pole, the woman and the firefighters trying to remove her from the car could have been electrocuted, King said.

The woman was alert and talking after she was removed from the car and was being taken to the hospital.

Patrick said he and his father-in-law weren’t injured and were just shaken up.

Kentucky Utilities workers arrived quickly to turn off the power to the wires and repair the pole, King said.

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 9:15 PM with the headline "Boat goes sailing off trailer in Lexington wreck that injures one, breaks electric power pole."