Sheriff’s Office identifies 2 people, both in early 20s, killed in car accident
Photos by Tom Rivers: DK Autobody in Albion removes a car that was in an accident this morning on Route 104 in Gaines. The vehicle overturned on a guardrail and was submerged in Beardsley Creek.
GAINES – The Orleans County Sheriff’s Office has identified the victims in a fatal car accident this morning on Route 104 in Gaines.
Brooke Allen, 21, of Lyndonville was driving a 2000 Nissan sedan eastbound when she struck a deer at 6:49 a.m. She her passenger – Richard Forder, 20, of Albion – were both pronounced dead at the scene by county coroner Rocky Sidari.
Allen swerved left after hitting the deer, went into a skid with her car crossing the westbound lane of the road. The car went over the edge of a guardrail, flipped over, and went down an embankment at Beardsley Creek. The car hit a concrete structure and was completely submerged upside down in the creek.
If the car had crossed the road a few feet farther west or east there likely wouldn’t have been a fatal accident, Bourke said. But the car caught the edge of the guard rail, which propelled it upward and caused it to flip over and land upside down in about 5 feet of water in the creek.
“It’s a horrible, traffic chain of events,” Bourke said at the scene.
Investigators can’t tell if Allen and Forder were killed from impact or if they drowned. Their bodies were taken to the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office for autopsies.
The accident closed a section of Route 104, between Eagle Harbor and Gaines Basin roads, until about 12:30 p.m.
The Orleans County Sheriff’s Office was assisted at the scene by the New York State Police Accident Reconstruction Team and the Albion Fire Department.
This is the second fatal accident in Orleans County in less than a week. On Saturday three people were killed on Route 63 in Shelby when a U-Haul crossed the lane and collided with a pickup truck.
