TEMPLE — A Peterborough teen who was trapped in his car after crashing into a telephone pole is in stable condition following surgery.

Cody Partridge, 19, was trapped in the car for more than an hour as rescuers worked to stabilize the telephone pole, and then cut him free. He was taken by helicopter to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon. Cody’s father, Mark Partridge, said his son had sustained serious injuries from the crash.

“He has a broken leg, broken ankle, broken hand and a lacerated spleen. He has gone into surgery and it’ll probably be a couple hours before we hear anything,” Mark Partridge said in an interview Sunday night.

Mark Partridge could not be reached to give an update on his son’s condition before press time Monday evening, but a hospital spokesperson characterized his condition as “satisfactory.”

State Police did not return several calls inquiring about the cause of the accident, but Mark Partridge said his son Cody had swerved off the road to avoid hitting another car that had pulled out in front of him.

“The main thing that we’re concerned about, of course, is the health of our two sons. The other thing we’re concerned about is hopefully we find out who pulled out in front of them.
The other car just took off,” he said. “My son has had a great driving record. It was just an evasive maneuver. There was also oncoming traffic, and it could have been a lot worse.”

Sawyer Partridge, 15, was the only other passenger in the car. He sustained minor injuries and was treated and released from Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, Mark Partridge said.

“Sawyer is doing fine right now,” Mark Partridge said Sunday night.

Traffic on Route 101 was diverted around the accident for more than two hours while several firefighters from surrounding towns worked to free Cody Partridge from the red Honda Del Sol he had been driving Sunday afternoon.

Addy Parsons of Hancock was headed toward Peterborough Sunday around noon when she saw the car smashed against the telephone pole. She ran to the car and found Cody Partridge badly hurt and unable to move.

“The driver just kept saying, ‘my legs are killing me, I want to get out.’ I told him to stay still and stay strong. I held his hand and tried to distract him,” Parsons said. “I asked him if he had a girlfriend and asked her name.”

While Parsons and others helped try to comfort Cody Partridge, emergency responders worked to cut electricity to the lines and stabilize the telephone pole to prevent it from falling, Temple Fire Chief Mike Connolly said.

“I made the decision not to touch the car until we got the pole secured and the power out,” Connolly said Monday afternoon. “I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger. The power lines were hanging off the pole and it started smoking.”

Connolly said he didn’t know what caused the crash, but said that section of Route 101 can be very dangerous.

“It’s just the traffic coming down the mountain is coming very fast,” Connolly said. “Most of our calls for car accidents are on Route 101. I’ve probably had 15 bad calls in this area in the last several years that have been either fatal, or near-fatal accidents like this one.”