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Marshfield bicyclist killed in accident

E-mail|Link|Comments () August 19, 2009 05:30 PM

By Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent

An elderly Marshfield man was killed this morning when he was hit by a car while bicycling near Green Harbor Marina in Marshfield, police said.

A man in his late 60s was crossing Dyke Road on a bicycle at about 10:30 a.m., when a Marshfield woman in her early 20s struck him with her sedan. The man was not wearing a helmet.

Cliff Woodard, an employee at a nearby bait shop and one of the first responders to the crash, said he found an unconscious grey-haired man lying in the road, bleeding from the head and mouth.

“It was serious,” said Woodard, who heard the crash happen. “It was very loud. I heard screeching and then – Bang!”

Marshfield Police Captain Phil Tavares said the victim suffered massive head injuries.

Woodard, who is a retired firefighter, said he rolled the victim on his side to try to open an airway that appeared to be blocked by blood.

The small sedan involved in the crash had a smashed driver’s side windshield, Woodard said. The victim’s bike was “mangled” and appeared to have been hit from the rear, he said.

Rescuers took the victim by ambulance to Governor Edward Winslow School on Regis Road in Marshfield, where a MedFlight helicopter was waiting to rush him to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after landing.

State and Marshfield Police are investigating the crash. No charges have been filed.

In a separate incident in Lowell today, a 41-year-old man suffered severe head trauma when he was struck on his bike by a sport utility vehicle on Middlesex Street, police said.

An 18-year-old Lowell woman driving a 1999 Ford Explorer hit the bicyclist near the intersection of Middlesex and Pawtucket Streets at about 1:35 p.m. The victim was not wearing a helmet.

He was taken by ambulance to Regatta Field on Pawtucket Boulevard, where he was picked up by a MedFlight helicopter and rushed to a Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. His condition was not released.