MONTCALM TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Police are investigating a fatal two-vehicle accident Saturday that shut down a stretch of M-91 in Montcalm Township.
It happened around 1:37 p.m., according to Montcalm County Central Dispatch, which says the highway reopened at 4:49 p.m. M-91/S. Greenville Road had been closed between Colby Road and Spencer Road. The crash occurred just north of the parking lot at Turk Lake Restaurant & Bar.
Photo courtesy: Amy Smith
Montcalm Township Fire Chief Clif Dickinson tells FOX 17 an SUV and a pickup truck collided head-on. He says a woman driving the SUV had no pulse when responders arrived on the scene. He says crews had to extricate her from the wreckage and she later died at a hospital. Chief Dickinson says the driver in the pickup truck also was pinned in his vehicle.
“We had to request another set of tools from Maple Valley Fire Department for that extrication,” says Dickinson. He says the pickup driver had non-life threatening injuries, and was also taken to a hospital.
The woman who died in the rash is Shelly Gilman, a teacher in the Tri County Area Schools District. She is the sister of Republican State Senate Candidate Rick Outman, in District-33.
Photo courtesy: Gilman/Outman family
He’s a former 70th District State Representative. Outman told FOX 17 in a telephone statement:
“We couldn’t ask for a better sister. She was the hub, we were the spokes. Where she was, we gathered. When we were kids, if it was at home, we gathered there. Didn’t matter which stage of life we were in. Where she lived, was where we gathered. Didn’t matter where it was, she was our gathering place. There is a hole, a vacancy that we will never be able to fill.”
Chief Dickinson says there were no other passengers in the pickup truck. A baby – Gilman’s granddaughter – was a passenger in the SUV, but Dickinson says the child was not hurt.
Police are investigating how it happened. The name of the pickup truck driver had not been released at the time of this report.
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