Williamsburg man seriously injured in wreck Sunday evening

A Williamsburg man was flown to the University of Tennessee Medical Center early Sunday evening following a one-vehicle wreck on US25W.

The accident happened shortly before 6:30 p.m. about 100 yards north of Main Street on Town Hill.

A dark colored pick-up truck driven by Hagen Paul, age unknown, crashed into a guardrail and flipped over on the driver’s side.
Williamsburg Fire Chief James Privett said emergency officials were initially notified that a vehicle was flipped on its side, a person was trapped inside, and that the vehicle was on fire.

When Williamsburg firefighters arrived about three minutes later, Privett said that Paul was already out of the vehicle lying behind the guardrail with the vehicle on fire.

Privett said that he doesn’t know if Paul was ejected from the vehicle, whether he crawled out on his own, or received assistance from a bystander in escaping a burning truck before authorities arrived at the scene.

Whitley County EMS treated Paul at the scene, and transported him to an emergency landing zone that Williamsburg firefighters set up near the Cumberland Regional Mall.

Air Evac. Lifeteam flew him by emergency medical helicopter to the University of Tennessee Medical Center.

"He’s about as lucky to be alive as I guess you will ever see," Privett said. "There is no piece on this truck that is not bent, torn up and mashed in. The whole truck is demolished from the front bumper to the back bumper."

Privett said it was fortunate that Paul wasn’t trapped inside the vehicle.

"It would have been real hard to get in to him the way the vehicle was sitting, and as demolished and torn up as the vehicle is," he said.

Privett said officials suspect that Paul may have been returning from a deer-hunting trip when the accident occurred. He was wearing camouflage clothing and at least two to three rifles were found near the accident scene.

The roadway was shutdown for over an hour, and re-opened about 7:40 p.m. Sunday.

Williamsburg police are apparently investigating to see whether alcohol was involved.

Packaging for a Budweiser beer case was found located near the exterior of the truck following the crash.

According to radio traffic between Williamsburg police and 911 dispatchers shortly after the road re-opened, police were apparently attempting to get Tennessee authorities to draw a sample of Paul’s blood for toxicology testing.

Paul was the only occupant in the vehicle. No other vehicles were known to be involved in the crash.

Williamsburg Police K-9 Officer Brandon Prewitt is investigating the accident, and was assisted at the scene by Officer Brandon White and Kentucky State Police. About a dozen Williamsburg firefighters either assisted at the scene or at the landing zone.