OTTAWA COUNTY, Mich– It seems like everywhere you look Tuesday afternoon you see slide offs and accidents.
“So whether it’s a wind event, snow event, thunder storms, that is really one of the major drivers of our workload,” Tim Smith, Executive director of Ottawa county dispatch said.
Tim Smith is the executive director for the Ottawa County Dispatch Center and says this it’s been one of the busiest days they’ve had in weeks.
“Between midnight and 5:30 am, we had one accident, and between 5:30 this morning and 1 pm, we’ve had 134 accidents,” Smith said.
Ottawa County wasn’t the only one experience this increase in accidents, Kent County had their fair share as well.
According to Michigan State Police Department, a driver lost control of her car, fishtail, and then was hit by a truck behind her on US-131 near West River Road. This pushed her vehicle several yards down the road. Kevin Lien was right behind the crash and immediately stopped to help.
“I went running around to help her, and I couldn`t get the passenger side door open. At that time she was unconscious, she was bleeding out of her mouth. She was bleeding that bad. After about 5 minutes she regained consciousness, but she stills wasn’t able to move or talk that much,” Kevin Lien, DRB transport said.
Smith says when they have accidents like this, they can get as many as 10 to 30 phone calls thanks to technology.
“85% of our calls on 911 lines are coming from cell phone, where in the past everyone had a land line. If we had an accident we would get one, maybe two calls,” Smith said.
