By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Two people were seriously injured late Friday when the car they were riding in and a tractor-trailer collided at Hotel and Merrow roads.

Firefighters used hydraulic equipment to free the woman driver and her passenger from a mangled Honda Accord as police closed a stretch of Hotel Road to traffic.

The identities of the pair were not available late Friday as police began their investigation.

The driver of the Dysart truck, which was headed in the direction of the airport at the time of the crash, escaped injury, police said.

The 10:20 p.m. collision sent the Accord spinning into a snowbank near the intersection. Pieces of the car frame and engine were strewn across the road and a lawn in front of a nearby home. The steering wheel was broken in half in the impact.

Rescue crews pulled out the male passenger first. He was speaking to paramedics as they loaded him into an ambulance. The driver appeared to be unconscious when she was pulled from the wreckage.

It was not immediately known what led to the collision. Early indications were that the Accord was being driven on Merrow Road and the tractor-trailer on Hotel Road. The driver’s side of the car appeared to have received the brunt of the impact.

Police were interviewing possible witnesses at the scene while trying to contact a reconstruction expert to assist them.

The conditions of the victims could not be determined an hour after the crash was reported.

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