No serious injuries in Merrimack three-car collision

MERRIMACK – A three-car collision at Bedford Road and Daniel Webster Highway tied up traffic temporarily Wednesday morning.

No one appeared to have been seriously injured, officials said at the scene.

Witnesses said a white Lexus crashed into at least one other car, a tan Acura, on Bedford Road, and then careened across Daniel Webster Highway and up the front steps of a vacant house at 615 Daniel Webster Highway.

Either the Lexus or the Acura hit a Ford Explorer stopped at the traffic light on Bedford Road, pushing it out into traffic on Daniel Webster Highway, but drivers heading north and south on that road apparently were able to avoid the crash.

Police were still investigating the collision, which happened shortly before 9 a.m., but witnesses said the Lexus seemed to speed up after hitting the other car or cars, and speculated that the driver, an adult male, may have been disabled in some way.

A man and his baby daughter in the Acura were brought to Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, and the driver of the Lexus was brought to Elliot Hospital in Manchester after firefighters propped up the car and cut the roof away.

The driver of the Explorer, Peggy Chisholm of Bedford, said her neck felt sore but she was otherwise unhurt. Chisholm didn’t see the crash coming, she said.

She was at the light at the end of Bedford Road, waiting to turn south onto Daniel Webster Highway, when her Explorer was hit from behind and pushed out into oncoming traffic, she said. Chisholm was able to steer off to the side of the road, however, and wasn’t hit again.

“I didn’t see much. I was scared out of my mind,” Chisholm said, adding later, “I feel very lucky that I didn’t get hit from both sides.”