TALBOT COUNTY, Md. -- Two Eastern Shore residents - a man and his sister - died yesterday after a car the brother was driving was struck by a state police cruiser en route to investigate a traffic accident, state police said.
The accident happened about 3 p.m. near a shopping center in Talbot County.
Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman, said Tfc. Phillip W. Willoughby, 28, was eastbound on Route 33 in St. Michaels on his way to an auto accident when he approached the entrance of a shopping center on Madison Avenue with his lights and siren on, according to witnesses.
A 1987 Toyota Cressida pulled from the shopping center entrance into the path of the trooper's 2006 Ford Crown Victoria and was struck on the driver's side, Shipley said.
The trooper kicked open the door of his damaged vehicle and went to the aid of the occupants of the other car, Shipley said.
Pronounced dead at the scene was Maynard W. Lowry, 88, of Tilghman. Alma Lowry, 87, also of Tilghman, was taken by ambulance to Easton Memorial Hospital, where she died at 5:30 p.m., police said.
Shipley said Willoughby, a member of the force for nearly eight years who is assigned to the Easton barracks, was flown by a state police helicopter to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where he was treated for cuts and bruises and then released.
Witnesses told police at the scene that there were no vehicles in front of the trooper on the straight and level roadway as he neared the shopping center entrance. The speed limit was 35 mph, Shipley said.
Shipley said the state police crash team and the Talbot County state's attorney's office were investigating the accident.