Two teenagers are dead after a single-vehicle rollover in Norwich Township at a rural spot that nearby residents say has been the site of several other collisions in recent years.
The crash happened shortly after midnight Friday. Of seven occupants in the SUV, one passenger, an 18-year-old woman from Brantford, died at the scene, Oxford OPP said.
A second, a 16-year-old male from Mount Pleasant, was pronounced dead in hospital, police said. Investigators say they won’t be publicly identifying either of the deceased.
Emergency crews responded to a single-vehicle crash on Cornell Road in Norwich Township, near Otterville, shortly after midnight.
Police say the vehicle left the road, trapping several passengers. One was ejected from the vehicle, police said Friday morning.
The driver and five passengers were rushed to local hospitals.
The collision at Cornell and Furnace roads took place at the bottom of a steep hill with a sharp turn to the left. The vehicle went off the road at the edge of a ditch, hitting a line of cedar trees.
A line of new trees was planted to replace old ones taken out in previous crashes, said a woman who lives nearby.
The woman, who didn’t want her name published, said this was the fourth crash in the same spot since 2016 – and the second fatal one.
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There is a memorial for another deceased person near the scene from a crash from 1993, she said. Local residents had petitioned Norwich Township to make the intersection safer last fall by adding flashing lights and guardrails, she said, adding the local government made small changes.
“This didn’t have to happen,” she said. “People didn’t have to die.”
Norwich Mayor Jim Palmer said he had no comment when contacted by The Free Press on Friday. Asked about safety issues on that portion of the road, he hung up.
The early-morning crash comes roughly eight months after another double fatal crash involving a vehicle full high school students west of London. Best friends Aleah Van Erp, 17, and Lola Fentie, 16, were killed and three others injured in a single-vehicle rollover crash on Amiens Road, just south of Melrose Drive in Middlesex Centre, on Dec. 22.